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More "Combustible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... doubt, being driven in some cases to look to the direct action of the external conditions of life as sufficient, and in other cases to feel a profound conviction that these have played a quite subordinate part, of not more importance than the nature of the spark which ignites a mass of combustible matter. ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... War shall send to the army on the coast of Rochelle all the combustible materials necessary to set fire to the forests and underwood ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... subordinate importance in comparison with the nature of the organism in determining each particular form of variation; perhaps of not more importance than the nature of the spark, by which a mass of combustible matter is ignited, has in determining ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... temporary, subsiding after the cause that produced it has passed away, and leaving the kind peasant to the natural, affectionate, and generous impulses of his character. But poor Paddy, unfortunately, is as combustible a material in politics or religion as in fighting—thinking it his duty to take the weak side*, without any other consideration than because it is ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... went under mahogany first, though Colonel Blood scarce had wit enough left to count the winnings of his wager. Young Lieutenant Blood stood up on his chair and bawled out some monstrous bad-writ verse to "a fair-dark lady"—whatever that meant—"who was as cold as ice and combustible as gunpowder." Healths were drunk to His Majesty King Charles, to His Royal Highness the Duke of York, to our councillors of the Company, to our governors of the fur-posts, and to the captains. Then the Duke of York himself lifted the cup to Pierre Radisson's honour; whereat the young courtiers ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... game to a fire is a far cry, but fire in the Philippines has such distinctive features that I cannot pass it without a word. The lack of all facilities for combating it makes it an ever present menace. The combustible materials of which houses are built, and their close crowding together, tend to spread it rapidly; while the thatched roofs make even the burning of an isolated house a danger ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... taxed for the support of customs officers of solar heat, we should prize it more than we do. Not that I should like to look upon the sun as a job, and have the proper regulation of its temperature get into politics, where we already have so much combustible stuff; but we take it quite too much as a matter of course, and, having it free, do not reckon it among the reasons for gratitude. Many people shut it out of their houses as if it were an enemy, watch its descent upon the carpet as if it were only a thief of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Indians lay concealed, while three or four who made the attack attempted thereby to decoy the whites outside of the defenses. Failing in this, they set fire to an old fence and corn-crib, and two stables, both long enough built to be thoroughly combustible. These had previously protected their approach in that direction. Captain Asa Reese was in command of our little fort. 'Boys,' said he, 'some of you must run over to Hinkston's or Harrison's.' These were one and a half and two miles ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... to the slave. Reason is imprisoned here, and passions run wild. Like the fires of the prairie, once lighted, they are at the mercy of every wind, and must burn, till they have consumed all that is combustible within their remorseless grasp. Capt. Anthony could be kind, and, at times, he even showed an affectionate disposition. Could the reader have seen him gently leading me by the hand—as he sometimes did—patting me on the head, ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... the best representative of the older school in either branch of Congress, gave a page of his diary to one of Douglas's early speeches. "His face was convulsed,"—so the merciless diary runs,—"his gesticulation frantic, and he lashed himself into such a heat that if his body had been made of combustible matter it would have burnt out. In the midst of his roaring, to save himself from choking, he stripped and cast away his cravat, unbuttoned his waistcoat, and had the air and aspect of a half-naked pugilist. And this man comes from a judicial bench, and passes for an eloquent orator!" ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... because they would not waken the people faster than they could master them; but the fire began to waken them fast enough, and our fellows were glad to keep a little together in bodies; for the fire grew so raging, all the houses being made of light combustible stuff, that they could hardly bear the street between them. Their business was to follow the fire, for the surer execution: as fast as the fire either forced the people out of those houses which were burning, ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... quench it, but to remove their goods, and leave all to the fire, and having seen it get as far as the Steele-yard, and the wind mighty high, and driving it into the City: and every thing after so long a drought proving combustible, even the very stones of churches, and among other things, the poor steeple [St, Lawrence Poultney, of which Thomas Elborough was Curate.] by which pretty Mrs. — lives, and whereof my old schoolfellow Elborough ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... regions of felicity which were his. The son of Pandu burnt the body of his uncle together with those four wives of his, using diverse kinds of scents and perfumed wood. As the funeral pyre blazed up, a loud sound was heard of the burning wood and other combustible materials, along with the clear chant of Samans and the wailing of the citizens and others who witnessed the rite. After it was all over, the boys of the Vrishni and Andhaka races, headed by Vajra, as also the ladies, offered oblations of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... strange companion; "it is only imprudence that makes victims. Olivari, who perished at Orleans, ascended in a mongolfier made of paper; his car, suspended below the chafing-dish, and ballasted with combustible materials, became a prey to the 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. ...
— A Voyage in a Balloon (1852) • Jules Verne
... continued blazing, after it reached the bottom. He then dropped in another piece upon it, which took fire. He then gathered some dry sticks, and put in; and, finding that the flame was increasing, he proceeded to gather all the dry and combustible matter, which he could find around, and put them in, so that in a short time he had a fine blaze, a foot above the top of the stump; and the inside of the stump itself ...
— Rollo's Philosophy. [Air] • Jacob Abbott
... this Description which carry in them a greater Measure of Probability, and are such as might possibly have happened. Of this kind is his first mounting in the Smoke that rises from the Infernal Pit, his falling into a Cloud of Nitre, and the like combustible Materials, that by their Explosion still hurried him forward in his Voyage; his springing upward like a Pyramid of Fire, with his laborious Passage through that Confusion of Elements which ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... became fanaticism. The conspirators concerted together, and disciplined and organised the city. Individual and distorted passions kindled the mighty and virtuous love of the people for the triumph of democracy. It is thus that in a conflagration the most tainted substances oft light the fire; the combustible matter is foul, but the flames pure; the flame of the Revolution was liberty; the factious might dim, they ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... the rebellion had been more durable and sanguinarie' But as soon as the news of Argyll's landing on the west coast came, this is his note, 'Argile, minding the former animosities and discontents in the country, thought to have found us all alike combustible tinder, that he had no more adoe then to hold the match to us, and we would all blow up in a rebellion; but the tymes are altered, and the peeple are scalded so severely with the former insurrections, that they are frighted to ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... have gradually led to the use of coke, brays or small coke, and peat. An abundance of coals existed in the neighbourhood: by rejecting those of inferior quality, and coking the others with great care, a combustible was obtained better fitted even than charcoal itself for the fusion of that particular kind of ore which is found in the coal-measures. Thus we find Darby's most favourite charge for his furnaces to have been five baskets of coke, two of brays, and one of peat; next followed the ore, and then ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... minutes the whole of the upper part of the pyre was ablaze, and the basin, with its crowds of splendidly attired and mounted officials, was brilliantly illuminated by the ruddy glare. I think the bier, and possibly the body also, must have been treated with some highly combustible preparation, for I noticed that the moment the flames reached them they seized upon them with avidity, so that within ten minutes of the first kindling the bier and the body were both enwrapped in a roaring volume of ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... made by sea and were repulsed, but during the years 716-717 A.D. the city had to face a combined attack by a Moslem navy and army. The eastern emperor, Leo the Isaurian, conducted a heroic defense, using with much effectiveness the celebrated mixture known as "Greek fire." This combustible, probably composed of sulphur, naphtha, and quicklime, was poured or hurled on the enemy's ships in order to burn them. "Greek fire," the rigors of an uncommonly severe winter, and timely aid from the Bulgarians at length compelled the Arabs to beat a retreat. ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... alone I might call myself the household god of a hundred families. Far be it from me, also, to hint, my respectable friends, at the show of dirty faces which you would present without my pains to keep you clean. Nor will I remind you how often, when the midnight bells make you tremble for your combustible town, you have fled to the town-pump and found me always at my post firm amid the confusion and ready to drain my vital current in your behalf. Neither is it worth while to lay much stress on my claims to a medical diploma as the physician whose simple ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the presence of a committee of the Academy of Sciences, two parallel rows of straw and brushwood supported by iron wires, were formed at the distance of 3 feet from each other, and extended 30 feet in length. When this combustible mass was set on fire, it was necessary to stand at a distance of 8 or 10 yards to avoid the heat. The flames from both the rows seemed to fill up the whole space between them, and rose to the height of 9 or 10 feet. At this moment six firemen, clothed in the incombustible dresses, and marching at ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... Colony kolonio. Colossal kolosa. Color koloro. Color kolori. Color (complexion) vizagxokoloro. Colorless senkolora. Colt cxevalido. Column kolono. Comb kombi. Comb kombilo. Combat batalo. Combat batali. Combatant batalanto. Combine kombini. Combustible brulebla. Combustion brulado. Come veni. Come (after) postveni. Come (back) reveni. Comedian komedianto. Comedy komedio. Comely gracia, beleta. Comet kometo. Comfort komforti. Comfort komforto. Comic ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... a dorf about half a league from the town, which he observed, almost in a moment, to flash from one end of the dorf to the other, consuming all in its way,—and thus it was said to have been in these suburbs. The reason thereof is the combustible matter whereof their houses are built, being of fir timber and boards, which, especially being old, do suddenly take fire, and violently burn, hard to be quenched, few houses escaping, especially in the dorfs, where one is on fire; which causeth more than ordinary care in the inhabitants of all ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... destroying the houses still uninjured by secretly introducing petroleum balls and fusees into the cellars. I saw a soldier suddenly seize a man as he was apparently harmlessly walking along the street; his pockets were emptied and found to contain cartridges and combustible balls of various sizes. Another soldier and a sailor rushed to the spot; the latter drew his revolver, and I expected would have shot the man then and there, but he was satisfied on seeing his comrade prick him sharply with his bayonet. The two soldiers then hurried the ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... Chicory had, however, gathered together a goodly portion of combustible wood, and there was plenty more at hand, so that a roaring fire was soon casting its light away from the wood, which somewhat sheltered them behind; and as soon as some of the good-sized pieces of bush were well ablaze, Chicory began to send them flying in the directions where ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... their march, had been thought so necessary a measure by all the chieftains, that even Oubacha himself was the first to authorize the act by his own example. He seized a torch previously prepared with materials the most durable as well as combustible, and steadily applied it to the timbers of his own palace. Nothing was saved from the general wreck except the portable part of the domestic utensils, and that part of the woodwork which could be applied to the manufacture of the long Tartar lances. This chapter in their memorable day's ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... the water out of the glass jar into the earthenware one. In one second follows a series of sharp reports from inside the jar, which seems suddenly to have become filled with highly combustible crackers. The Professor drops the jar as if he had burnt his fingers, and the cracking and popping go on inside. Ladies rise frightened. Layder ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... De Banyan flew to the rescue, and made a most enthusiastic attempt to check the fire; but the raging element was now past control. The flames spread through the combustible material which had been stored on the deck; and they were compelled to abandon the ill-starred steamer with the utmost precipitation, in order to save ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... all, but did not therefore draw back; and looking fearlessly at the pile heaped with all these combustible materials intended for his martyrdom, he did not any the more cease from his work. He resisted, and ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... then of the public peace. The matrons of Boston were transformed into a synod of slanderous praters, whose inquisitional deliberations and audacious decrees, instilled their venom into the innermost recesses of society; and the spirits of a great majority of the citizen being in that combustible state in which a feeble spark will suffice to kindle a formidable conflagration, the whole Colony was inflamed and distracted by the incontinence of female ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... spend another winter upon Gallia, some means could not be devised by which the dreariness of a second residence in the recesses of the volcano might be escaped. Would not another exploring expedition possibly result in the discovery of a vein of coal or other combustible matter, which could be turned to account in warming some erection which they might hope to put up? A prolonged existence in their underground quarters was felt to be monotonous and depressing, and although it might be all very well for a man like Professor Rosette, absorbed in astronomical ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... regarded the air as playing a very important part in combustions; he said—"Airs are divided into two categories; an air for the divine flame, which is the soul; and a material air which is the nourisher of sensible fire, and the basis of combustible matter." Sentences like that I have just quoted are found here and there in the writings of the earlier and later alchemists; now and again we also find statements which may be interpreted, in the light of the fuller knowledge we now have, as indicating at least suspicions that the atmosphere is ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... with difficulty that it could be stopped. We crossed the frontier line a short distance from camp, and entered a dense jungle of thorny acacia, with long dry grass almost choking the trees. They were dry and stunted, and when we dropped a few lights amongst such combustible material, the fire was splendid beyond description. How the flames surged through the withered grass. We were forced to pause and admire the magnificent sight. The wall of flame tore along with inconceivable rapidity, and the blinding volumes of smoke obscured the country for ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... eyes, and an odd smell of burning assailed her nostrils. Fire, was it fire? She remembered that Wyvis had once said that the Red House would burn like tinder if it was ever set alight. The old woodwork was very combustible, and there was a great deal of it, ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... bonfire no more—no, not at all; nor the fireworks neither—no, nothing of no kind of the sort." All this in his natural voice: then, swelling in dignity and in diction, "but, for the accumulated pile of combustibles, I say—for the combustible pile that you have accumulated, that you may not be deprived of the merit of doing a good action, the materials of which it is composed, that is to say, the logs of wood, and the bavins of furze, with ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... showing that they over-drink their allowance. The captain spoke pretty sharply to them.' It is true: I have the remark in my old note-book; I got it of the third mate in the hospital at Honolulu. But there is not room for it here, and it is too combustible, anyway. Besides, the third mate admired it, and what he admired he was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... erected on elevated buildings. As this was not sufficiently demonstrative he succeeded at length in drawing the lightning from the clouds by means of a kite and silken string, so as to ignite spirits and other combustible substances by an electric spark similar to those from a Leyden jar. To utilize his discovery of the identity of lightning with electricity he erected lightning-rods to protect buildings, that is, to convey the lightning from the overhanging clouds through conductors to the ground. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... those which do not. The metals were considered to be composed of sulphur and mercury. These substances are themselves compounds, but they act as elements in the composition of metals. Sulphur represented their combustible aspect, and also that which gave them their solid form; while mercury was that to which their weight and powers ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... sixty miles above the surface, and was observed at different extremities of the kingdom. The sound of an explosion was heard through Devon and Cornwall, and along the opposite coast of Bretagne. Halley conjectured this and similar displays to proceed from combustible vapors aggregated on the outskirts of the atmosphere, and suddenly set on fire by some unknown cause. But since his time, the fact has been established, of the actual fall of heavy bodies to the earth ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... delegates and the formal action of conventions, and in all cases except that of Texas the question was conclusively passed upon by conventions. By every means they "fired the Southern heart," which was notoriously combustible; they stirred up a great tumult of sentiment; they made thunderous speeches; they kept distinguished emissaries moving to and fro; they celebrated each success with an uproar of cannonading, with bonfires, illuminations, and processions; they appealed to those chivalrous ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... affords clues to the method of Nature in the non-physical, or supersensuous world. But apart from that, it is incredible that a mind like Emerson's took no interest in natural knowledge for its own sake. The fact that two visible and inodorous gases like hydrogen and oxygen—one combustible and the other the supporter of combustion—when chemically combined produce water, which extinguishes fire, is intensely interesting as affording us a glimpse of the contradictions and paradoxes that abound everywhere in ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... wandering night and day blindfold, down the long, dark, lampless avenue of destruction, and destined never more to visit Dalkeith again, except with a wooden stump and a brass virl, or to have his head blown off his shoulders, mast high, like ingan peelings, with some exploding earthquake of combustible gunpowder.—Call in the laddie, I say, and see what he would like to ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... department are located at 127 Mercer street, in a handsome building known as Fireman's Hall. Here are the offices of the Commissioners, the Chief Engineer, Secretary, Medical officer, Telegraph Bureau, Bureau of Combustible materials, and Fireman's Lyceum. The Lyceum contains a library of over 4000 volumes, and a collection of engravings, documents, and relics relating to the old Fire Department. All fines exacted of firemen, and those imposed on citizens for violating the ordinances relating to ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... a hut upon my settlement, about forty yards from the creek of St. John, till I could build my house, and lodging {19} for my people. As my hut was composed of very combustible materials, I caused a fire to be made at a distance, about half way from the creek, to avoid accidents: which occasioned an adventure, that put me in mind of the prejudices they have in Europe, from the relations that are commonly current. The ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... pipes laid by the side of the ordinary gas mains, it would be possible to fix small Drummond lights in place of the gas burners now used in houses; this would greatly reduce the consumption of gas and increase the light obtained, or even render possible the employment of cheap non-illuminating combustible gases other than coal gas ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various
... Esquimaux live and make themselves comfortable in huts of ice or snow, and with no other combustible but oil. ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... laid her alongside L'Orient. One particular only I shall add to the known account of the memorable engagement between these ships, and this I received from Sir Alexander Ball himself. He had previously made a combustible preparation, but which, from the nature of the engagement to be expected, he had purposed to reserve for the last emergency. But just at the time when, from several symptoms, he had every reason to believe that the enemy would soon strike to him, ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... another, the thyroid may be compared to the accelerator of an automobile. That is a rough and superficial comparison because an accelerator lets in more of the fuel to be burned up, while the thyroid makes the fuel more combustible. It thus resembles more the primer, for a rich mixture of gasoline and air burns at a greater velocity than a poor one. But the action of thyroid could really be simulated only by some substance that could be introduced into the best possible of gasoline mixtures, to increase its combustibility ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... they pillaged and ransacked every church and monastery: they broke the painted windows and organs, destroyed the images, stole the ecclesiastical ornaments, sold the shrines, committed pulpits, chests, books, and whatever was combustible, to the fire; and finally, after having wreaked their vengeance upon eyery thing that could be made the object of it, they went boldly to the town-hall to demand the wages for their labors.—In the course of these outrages the tomb of the Conqueror at one abbey, ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... Dr. Lindsley has compiled a table of nineteen instances, from the Dictionnaire de Medecine,—not, however, of spontaneous combustion exactly, but of something akin to it; namely, the rapid ignition of the human body (which per se is not combustible) by contact with flame, as a consequence of the saturation of its tissues ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853 • Various
... railings of the main gallery construction are likewise of ornate treatment. All exterior doors and trim are of metal and all interior carpenter work is done with Kalomein iron protection, so that the building, in its strictest sense, will contain no combustible material. ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous
... crime of setting fire to the city, as for their hatred of human kind. They died in torments, and their torments were imbittered by insult and derision. Some were nailed on crosses; others sewn up in the skins of wild beasts, and exposed to the fury of dogs; others again, smeared over with combustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate the darkness of the night. The gardens of Nero were destined for the melancholy spectacle, which was accompanied with a horse-race and honored with the presence of the emperor, who mingled with the populace in the dress and attitude ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... square of Caxamarca. It was the evening of the twenty-ninth of August, 1533. The clanking of chains was heard as the victim, manacled hand and foot, toiled painfully over the stone pavement of the square. He was bound by chains to the stake; the combustible fagots were piled up around him. Friar Vincent then, it is said, holding up the cross before the victim, told him that if he would embrace Christianity he should be spared the cruel death by the flames, and experience in its stead only the painless death ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... Tommy, with a smile, that he believed that would do, he struck it several times against the back of his knife, and thus produced several sparks of fire. "This," said Harry, "will be sufficient to light a fire, if we can but find something of a sufficiently combustible nature to kindle from these sparks." He then collected the driest leaves he could find, with little decayed pieces of wood, and piling them into a heap, endeavoured to kindle a blaze by the sparks which he continually struck from his knife and the flint. But ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... had also a preparation sent, as they said, by the convention from Paris, which seems to have been of the nature of the Greek fire; for it became liquid when it was discharged, and water would not extinguish its flames. This combustible was concealed with great care in the captured ships; like the red-hot shot, it had been found useless in battle. Admiral Hotham's action saved Corsica for the time; but the victory had been incomplete, ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... heaped over them to a considerable height, and then Ghee, or melted preserved butter, poured on the top. Two bamboos were then put over them and held fast down, and fire put to the pile, which immediately blazed very fiercely, owing to the dry and combustible materials of which it was composed. No sooner was the fire kindled than all the people set up a great shout—Hurree-Bol, Hurree-Bol, which is a common shout of joy, and an invocation of Hurree, or Seeb. It was impossible to have heard the woman had she groaned, or even cried aloud, on ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... That horn is combustible everyone who has watched the fitting of a hot shoe knows. That it is a bad conductor of heat, the absence of bad after-effects ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... possible to cut a way out by Carignan towards Montmedy, and then this outlet reclosed. This refuge only remained, Sedan; Sedan encumbered with carts, with wagons, with carriages, with hospital huts; a heap of combustible matter. This dying agony of heroes lasted ten hours. They refused to surrender, they grew indignant, they wished to complete their death, so bravely begun. They were delivered ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... illumination but for safety. When the visitors have arrived on the lower platform, which is near the middle of the eastern side against the wall, the guide, who has not descended the steps, lights a basket of shavings or other quick combustible on the platform above. The effect is instantaneous and magical. Suddenly from an obscurity so profound that only the outline of the nearest columns can be faintly discerned by the flicker of a candle, the entire maze of columns ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... community, instead of serving for mutual defence, serves only to increase the danger. Such a system is like a city, where trades that require constant fires are much exercised, where the houses are built of combustible materials, and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... well pelted, soundly whipped, and speedily forgotten. In 1678 or 1679 there would have been an outbreak if those men had never been born. For years things had been steadily tending to such a consummation. Society was one vast mass of combustible matter. No mass so vast and so combustible ever waited ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... ending in le commonly have the accent on the first syllable, as amicable, unless the second syllable have a vowel before two consonants, as combustible. ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... after that, on the 30th of July, 1844, the same destroying spirit Joe Smith was allowed to attack me directly, to show how he would be able to kill a man in a minute, if he would be permitted. But he was seized by my guardian and cast into a combustible matter which was by his infernal electricity instantly kindled. George Karle was permitted to be drowned, because the time for establishing our centre had not yet arrived, and Karle had an important mission in the ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar
... fortunes to the mercy of the open sea, and by this time our clothing had become so dilapidated that the necessity for something to replace it was growing urgent. Therefore, while I busied myself daily upon the task of conveying combustible material to the summit of the Peak—as we had named the highest point on the island—that we might be able to kindle a fire and raise a big smoke in the event of a sail heaving in sight, and while Julius undertook to find a daily supply of food for the party, the women ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... introduce to the readers of the "Irish Monthly," and who found the heat of a short Northern summer simply "intolerable," the tropics and their environs rather allure me. True, soldiers and old residents speak of places between which and the lower regions there is but a sheet of non-combustible tissue paper. Nevertheless, the writer who has lived in both places would rather, as a matter of choice, summer in the Tropics than winter in ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... stings of the flesh. Know me come eat with me. Royal sturgeon high sheriff, Coffey, the butcher, right to venisons of the forest from his ex. Send him back the half of a cow. Spread I saw down in the Master of the Rolls' kitchen area. Whitehatted chef like a rabbi. Combustible duck. Curly cabbage a la duchesse de Parme. Just as well to write it on the bill of fare so you can know what you've eaten. Too many drugs spoil the broth. I know it myself. Dosing it with Edwards' desiccated soup. Geese stuffed silly for ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... debris was used to fill up Long Wharf. The fire "broke out," says an account in the Boston News-Letter, "in an old tenement within a backyard in Cornhill, near the First Meeting-house, occasioned by the carelessness of a poor Scottish woman by using fire near a parcel of ocum, chips, and other combustible rubbish." ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... seems to have been attracted by the spire of the Steeple, which—running up from the centre of a four-sided roof rising in the form of a pyramid—was rapidly conducted by means of a large quantity of iron used for the security of the timbers, to the shingles and other combustible materials of three of the corners of the building, almost directly under the eave. There entirely inaccesible for some minutes to any efforts which could be made use of for the purpose of quenching ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... There is in London an almost universal absence of wooden additions and outbuildings, and the New York ash barrel or box kept in the house is also unknown. The local authorities in London keep a strict watch over the manufacture or storage of combustible materials in populous parts of the city. Although overhead telegraph wires are multiplying to an alarming extent in London, their number is nothing to be compared to their bewildering multitude in New York, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... starch group or the sugar group, are composed chiefly of three elements: carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen; they are therefore combustible, and are great energy producers. On the other hand, they are worthless for cell growth and repair, and if we limited our diet to carbohydrates, we should be like a man who had fuel but no ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... be denied, however, that this gaseous oxyd of carbon (CO) is inflammable ... and is essentially different from all other oxyds, none of which are combustible. ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... labour shall be bestowed on the public roads—the best modes of conducting our schools and colleges—the comparative merits of the candidates for office, or the policy of some proposed change in the laws. Man is made, you know, of very combustible materials, and may be kindled as effectually by a spark falling at the right time, in the right place, as when within ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... the night was warm, for I happened to know that a good deal of the cargo which we were carrying was of a highly combustible character, such as furniture, pianos, Manchester goods, and the like, to say nothing of several cases of sporting ammunition. I knew that if once the fire happened to get a good hold upon such material as that the chances were all against our being able to master ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... Bombay, to avoid a feeling of apprehension concerning a catastrophe, which sooner or later seems certain to happen, and which nothing short of a miracle appears to prevent from taking place every night; I mean the destruction of the whole by fire. All the houses are constructed of the most combustible materials, and the greater number belonging to the native quarter are thatched. Though contrary to law, many of the warehouses contain gunpowder, while the immense quantity of oil and spirits stored up in them would render ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... substance capable of rendering great service to humanity. The injury which it causes is the result of its misuse. Though unfit for introduction into the human body, except in the most guarded manner, it is adapted to a great variety of uses outside of the body. A combustible substance which is readily convertible into a gas, it may be substituted for gasoline in the cooking of food, lighting of dwellings, and the running of machinery. As a solvent for gums, resins, essential oils, etc., it is used in the preparation ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... a large rambling Mansion. The pillars were rotten, the galleries tumbling down, the thatch dry and combustible, and there was only one door. Suddenly, one day, there was a smell of fire: the old man rushed out. To his horror he saw that the thatch was aflame, the rotten pillars were catching fire one by one, and the rafters were burning like tinder. But, inside, the children went ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... negative electricity—oxygen—produces flame; and the dilative force, or positive electricity—hydrogen—produces warmth. And lastly, salt is the equilibrium or compound of the two former. So taken, salt, sulphur, and mercury are equivalent to the combustive, the combustible, and the combust, under one or other of which all known bodies, or ponderable substances, may be classed ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... exception of a few showers towards the close of that month, continues, with little interruption, throughout the full season. The immense mass of vegetation with which the fertile soil loads itself during the summer is suddenly withered, and the whole earth is covered with combustible materials. A single spark of fire falling anywhere upon these plains at such a time, instantly kindles a blaze that spreads on every side, and continues its destructive course as long as it finds fuel, these fires sweeping on with a rapidity ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... parching heat of summer, and especially after the excessive dryness occasioned by the hot winds, the whole face of the country becomes, as it were, combustible, and bush-fires have at such times burst forth apparently spontaneously, and spread with great rapidity. The "Black Thursday" of the colony, some fifteen years since, when fire covered many hundreds of ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... thing that the root-house had been finished, as it formed a secure store-house for their goods, and could also be made available as a hiding-place from the Indians, in time of need. The boys carefully scraped away all the combustible matter from its vicinity and that of the house; but the rapid increase of the fire now warned them to hurry down to join Catharine and the young Mohawk, who had gone off to the lake shore with such things as they ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... blocks away to the westward they could see flames shooting from the windows of a warehouse. Its contents must have been highly combustible, for they were burning like chaff in a furnace draught. As they stood and watched the conflagration a second explosion occurred, and so close at hand that the ground seemed to rock beneath their feet. And with that Nanna's heart grew faint within her, ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... thing was burned. Animal bodies, full of moisture, glowed awhile and then remained charred wrecks. Wood and other easily combustible things burned to ashes. On the ground lay the bodies, amidst heaps of hot mud, heaps of gleaming ashes and piles of volcanic ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... bishops sent over to Mexico and Peru, and when the Inquisition was established in both countries in 1570 it probably meant no increase of severity. The natives were exempt from its jurisdiction and it found little combustible material save in captured Protestant Europeans. A Fleming was burned at Lima in 1548, and at the first auto held at Mexico in 1574 thirty-six Lutherans were punished, all English captives, two by burning and the rest by scourging or ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... galleries over the angles of the parapet. I left small trap-doors in the bottom of these, for the purpose of throwing down shells on the heads of any party below attempting to force an entrance through the embrasures. The other defect—the presence of so much combustible matter in the quarters—it was impossible to remedy, and it ultimately cost the loss of the fort. The excuse that it never could have been anticipated that the fort would be attacked from the land side is hardly a valid one, for a foreign fleet might possibly have effected a landing on ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday
... the combustible line, I am afraid," said Winthrop, putting up his books and going to ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... marked its advance, and now dying away in hoarse murmurs, as if to gather strength for the new and more furious outburst that the next moment followed, it kept on its terrific march till it reached the central elevation, which embraced the most tangled, densely covered, and combustible part of the slash, and on which had been left standing an enormous dry pine, that towered so up high above the surrounding forest as to have long served as a landmark for the hunters and fishermen, in setting their courses through the woods or ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... unfortunately lacked, by another and analogous material. It was possible that some of the varieties of mushrooms which grew in the crevices of the old trees, after having been subjected to prolonged drying, might be transformed into a combustible substance. ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... During the course of the meeting in the afternoon the factory bell rung, and the "scabs" were seen leaving. Some boys in the audience began throwing stones and there was hooting. Fully aware of the combustible accounts wanted by their offices, the reporters immediately telephoned exaggerated, inflammatory stories of a riot being under way; the police on the spot likewise notified headquarters. [Footnote: In a statement published ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... being very high, the flame soon spread itself over the roof of the palace, and catching at every combustible in its way, the invaders became so terrified at the quick progress of fire which threatened to consume themselves as well as their plunder, that they quitted the spot with precipitation. Decrying the count and his soldiers at a short distance, they directed their motions ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... that prompt assistance might arrive, and that the books might, by the remotest possibility, be saved, would have been enough, on a moment's consideration, to dismiss any idea of this sort from his mind. Remembering the quantity of combustible objects in the vestry—the straw, the papers, the packing-cases, the dry wood, the old worm-eaten presses—all the probabilities, in my estimation, point to the fire as the result of an accident with his matches or ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... case, it is evident to the impartial observer that Voltaire's visit could only have ended as it did—in an explosion. The elements of the situation were too combustible for any other conclusion. When two confirmed egotists decide, for purely selfish reasons, to set up house together, everyone knows what will happen. For some time their sense of mutual advantage may induce them to tolerate each other, but sooner or later human nature ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... Gun-powder, in that they call the White-Tower, when all at once the middle Flooring did not only give way, or shrink, but fell flat down upon other Barrels of Powder, together with many of the same combustible Matter which had been placed upon it. It was a Providence strangely neglected at that Time, and hardly thought of since; But let any considerate Man consult the Consequences, if it had taken fire; ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... besom of destruction every object and monument of art which stood in their way. Cortez razed the walls of ancient Mexico to the ground as he entered it, and his zealous followers committed to the flames whatever was light and combustible. This spirit marked the entire conquest which was carried on under the triple mania of religious bigotry, the lust of gold, and the unchastened spirit of national robbery. We have to glean for facts among that which is left. It is still an interesting field, but it has been hedged up since ...
— Incentives to the Study of the Ancient Period of American History • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... definition of it, I should cease to feel it and to possess it. Passion is like suffering, and like suffering it creates its object. It is easier for the fire to find something to burn than for something combustible to find ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... freedom. This was at no time more remarkable than in the present Session, during the discussion of those arbitrary measures, the Treason and Sedition Bills, when sparks were struck out, in the collision of the two principles, which the combustible state of public feeling at the moment rendered not a little perilous. On the motion that the House should resolve itself into a Committee upon the Treason Bill, Mr. Fox said, that "if Ministers were determined, by means of the corrupt influence they already possessed in the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... and rendered more combustible by wax and oil, besides the arts they had used, took fire at once. The flames roared high and fiercely, blackening the prison wall, and twining up its lofty front like burning serpents. At first they crowded round the blaze, and vented their exultation only in their ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... intercourse with Italy and Asia Minor. The constant readiness of these men moving to and fro to carry everywhere sparks from the scene of conflagration tended in a high degree to excite apprehension, especially at a time when so much combustible matter was everywhere ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... streak was on, the whole work advancing, as it might be, pari passu. Planks for the decks were much wanted, for, in the terrible strait for fuel which had caused the original assault on the schooner, this portion of the vessel had been the first burned, as of the most combustible materials. The quarter-deck of the Vineyard craft, luckily, was entire, and its planks so far answered an excellent purpose. They served to make a new quarter-deck for the repairs, but the whole of the main-deck and forecastle remained ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... puts a stop to the mischief; but parties of men are also sent out into the woods to "fight the fire." They tread out the flames among the dry leaves by trampling them down, and they rake away the combustible materials, to confine the enemy to its old grounds, when it soon exhausts itself. The flames spread more frequently along the earth, than from ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... inwrapped in burning hydrogen, which in consequence of some great convulsion had been liberated in prodigious quantities, and then combining with other elements, had set this hapless world on fire? In such a fierce conflagration, the combustible gas would soon be consumed, and the glow would therefore begin to decline, subject, as in this case, to a second eruption, which occasioned the renewed outburst of light on ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... readily combustible wood was prepared. The body was taken charge of by persons chosen to perform the last sacred rites, and firmly bound in skins or blankets, and then placed upon the funeral pyre, with all the personal effects of the deceased, together with numerous votive offerings from ...
— Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity - Their History, Customs and Traditions • Galen Clark
... of the seared grass, and heaped a dry couch upon which Ben laid his charge within the genial heat that came from the cedar tree. Then they gathered up all the combustible matter within reach, and began to kindle a fire so near to the place where she lay that its heat must help to drive back the chill of death if there was a spark of life yet vital in ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... enlisted in Singapore and taken to the scene of action by Mr. Fontaine. The "enemy" was seldom obvious, but during the war it inflicted a loss upon us of eight killed and twenty-three wounded. We took various stockades, shot from sixty to eighty Malays, burned a good deal of what was combustible, and gave stability to the shaky rule of the Datu Klana, Syed Abdulrahman. Of this prince, who owed his firm seat on the throne to British intervention, the Resident wrote in 1880:—"Loyal to his engagements, he had gained the good will of the British ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... a likely sort of place to catch fire, it would seem, either," Hewitt commented. "Old ploughs and such lumber are not very combustible." ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... situation was for some time extremely perilous. The vessel neared us more than once, and apparently threatened to involve us in one common destruction. The cargo, consisting of dry provisions, spirits, cotton goods, and other articles equally combustible, burned with great violence, while the fury of the destroying element, the amazing height of the flames, the continued storm, amidst the thick darkness of the night, rendered the scene appalling and terrible. About ten o'clock, ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... in Pudding Lane, close by Fish Street, in the lower part of the city. The house being built of wood, and coated with pitch, as were likewise those surrounding it, and moreover containing faggots, dried logs, and other combustible materials, the fire spread with great rapidity: so that in a short time not only the baker's premises, but the homesteads which stood next it on either side were ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... thoughtful," exclaimed Harriet. The building of the fire made quite an impression on her. This impression was strengthened when upon reaching the low fire she observed that all leaves and combustible matter had been raked away to a safe distance from the fire so that the forest might not be fired by the blaze. It was her first lesson in woodcraft on this eventful journey into the ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... pleasing Bengal lights, with which people amuse themselves, and then laughingly throw from the windows into the street. Collected together in the story below and on the ground floor, transported to shops, to warehouses and into business cabinets, they find combustible material, piles of wood a long time accumulated, and here do the flames enkindle. The conflagration seems to have already begun, for the chimneys roar and a ruddy light gleams through the windows; but "No," say the people above, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... in gauze wire which, while it admits oxygen to feed the flame, prevents communication between the flame and any combustible or ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... with them on their hasty march to Morristown. Beside the cannon Molly also saw a lighted fuse slowly burning down at one end. She had a temptation as she looked at the piece of rope soaked in some combustible, lying there ready to achieve its purpose. She stooped over Dilwyn again, then she rose and went to the cannon, fuse in hand. In a half-second the booming of the great gun shook the battle-field—Molly had touched it off, and at exactly the right moment, ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... that report. Every one knew what it meant. It was caused by the exploding of the strong iron-bound cask— burst open by the gas engendered by the fire within. Of course the spirit was now spilled over the floor of the store-room and everywhere on fire; so that every combustible article within reach—and of these there were many—would soon catch the flame. There were dry barrels of biscuits, and quantities of bacon, hams, with lard, oil, and butter. It was remembered that there was a barrel of pitch, too, close to where the brandy-cask had been kept. All ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... done, Bog and Pet withdrew, and had hardly reached the foot of the tower, when the musical thunder of the great bell announced the constantly reiterated story of a fire in the Seventh—that most combustible of all ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... Flanderkin and forthwith sent to Newgate, and there were other arrests, which did but inflame the smouldering rage of the mob. Some of the wealthier foreigners, taking warning by the signs of danger, left the City, for there could be no doubt that the whole of London and the suburbs were in a combustible condition of discontent, needing only a spark ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... burning the city, as for their hatred of mankind. Their executions were so contrived as to expose them to derision and contempt. Some were covered over with the skins of wild beasts, and torn to pieces by dogs; some were crucified. Others, having been daubed over with combustible materials, were set up as lights in the night-time, and thus burned to death. Nero made use of his own gardens as a theatre on this occasion, and also exhibited the diversions of the circus, sometimes standing in the crowd as a spectator, in the habit of a charioteer; at other times ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... made by driving green bamboo stakes into the earth, between which was first laid fire-wood, very dry and combustible; upon this was put a quantity of dry straw, or reeds, besmeared with grease: this was done alternately, till the pile was five feet in height; and the whole was then strewed with rosin, finely powdered. A white cotton sheet, which had been ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... He immediately consented. The spring was not far advanced enough yet for Andrew to begin clearing any land even supposing that he had made a purchase; as it is always necessary that the leaves should be out, in order that this additional combustible may serve to burn the heaps ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... the three travellers got into their car. The doctor lit the combustible in his cylinder and turned the flame so as to produce a rapid heat, and the balloon, which had rested on the ground in perfect equipoise, began to rise in a few minutes, so that the seamen had to slacken the ropes they held it by. The car then rose about ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... of their own rattlesnakes." Of the fathers of our Revolution he speaks in no more flattering terms:—"Probably in America, as in other places, the chiefs are incendiaries, that hope to rob in the tumults of a conflagration, and toss brands among a rabble passively combustible." All these atrocities and follies amuse and interest us now; they are the coprolites of a literary megatherium, once hateful to gods and men, now inoffensive ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... gathered together a goodly portion of combustible wood, and there was plenty more at hand, so that a roaring fire was soon casting its light away from the wood, which somewhat sheltered them behind; and as soon as some of the good-sized pieces of bush ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... the truth of a hundred other laudations collected and printed by this modest author, we shall quote a few passages from his play, and illustrate his genius by pointing out their beauties—an office much needed, particularly by certain dullards, the magazine of whose souls are not combustible enough to take fire at the electric sparks shot forth up out of the depths of George ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... at least during sufficient time to enable the chief defences to be blown up and the harbour fleet to be destroyed. If you will so far favour me, I should be gratified by having an opportunity of demonstrating to your strong mind, free from professional bias, the fact that combustible ships may be not only placed on a parity with stone forts fitted to fire red-hot shot, but secured from injury more effectually ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... to these two infernal machines, or "hell-burners," as they were called, a fleet of thirty-two smaller vessels was prepared. Covered with tar, turpentine, rosin, and filled with inflammable and combustible materials, these barks were to be sent from Antwerp down the river in detachments of eight every half hour with the ebb tide. The object was to clear the way, if possible, of the raft, and to occupy the attention of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of obviating the effects of any sudden sallies it might produce. 10. Near the temple of Isis she had erected a building, which was seemingly designed for a sepulchre. Hither she moved her treasure and most valuable effects, covering them with torches, fagots, and other combustible matter. 11. This sepulchre she designed to answer a double purpose, as well to screen her from the sudden resentments of Antony, as to make Augustus believe that she would burn all her treasure, in case he refused proper terms ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... it were a dangerous combustible which might explode at any moment, she hurried away with it to her own room, turned the key in the lock, and sat down ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... families. Far be it from me, also, to hint, my respectable friends, at the show of dirty faces which you would present without my pains to keep you clean. Nor will I remind you how often, when the midnight bells make you tremble for your combustible town, you have fled to the town-pump and found me always at my post firm amid the confusion and ready to drain my vital current in your behalf. Neither is it worth while to lay much stress on my claims to a medical diploma as the physician ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... pour victoriously into Upper Town. In the meantime, Livingston, with a regiment of Canadians, and Brown, with part of a Boston regiment, were to make false attacks on Cape Diamond Bastion, St. John and St. Louis Gates, which they were to fire, if possible, with combustible ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... horses harnessed, I had hauled a supply of pitch-wood and other fuel for this purpose, and had prepared two heaps, one on each side of the block house, in readiness to apply the match. I lighted them, and the combustible wood blazed up, and cast a red glare upon all the clearing. Kit Cruncher's calculation was fully justified, and we were satisfied that no Indian could approach the Castle without our knowledge, if we only kept ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... formed by a weak union of carbon with hydrogen are called hydrocarbons. They comprise nearly all the highly inflammable vegetable substances. Their being combustible means simply that they have a great disposition to resume their union with oxygen—combustion being nothing other than a more or less violent return of a substance to a union with oxygen or some other such substance, usually one from which it had formerly been separated ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... inferior, because nothing can be so hot, so tormenting, so intolerably insupportable, as the quickest apprehensions of, and the immediate sinking under, that guilt and indignation that is proportional to the offence. Should all the wood, and brimstone, and combustible matter on earth be gathered together for the tormenting of one body, yet that cannot yield that torment to that which the sense of guilt and burning-hot application of the indignation of God will do to the soul; yea, suppose the fire wherewith the body ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... wrote to Mr. Leake, of Virginia, concerning Fillmore's compromise measures of 1850, which had been passed by Congress, and said, 'that the volcano has been extinguished, and the man who would apply the firebrand to the combustible materials still remaining, will produce an eruption that will overwhelm the Constitution and ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... dorf about half a league from the town, which he observed, almost in a moment, to flash from one end of the dorf to the other, consuming all in its way,—and thus it was said to have been in these suburbs. The reason thereof is the combustible matter whereof their houses are built, being of fir timber and boards, which, especially being old, do suddenly take fire, and violently burn, hard to be quenched, few houses escaping, especially in the ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... colony we were led to a small concrete structure (near the furnace where all combustible waste is burned), and as the door was opened we saw before us on a concrete slab four bodies so wasted and shrivelled that they seemed scarcely human. These were those who had at last been cured ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... more—no, not at all; nor the fireworks neither—no, nothing of no kind of the sort." All this in his natural voice: then, swelling in dignity and in diction, "but, for the accumulated pile of combustibles, I say—for the combustible pile that you have accumulated, that you may not be deprived of the merit of doing a good action, the materials of which it is composed, that is to say, the logs of wood, and the bavins of furze, with the ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... absented himself upon some occasion, fastened upon the basis, which was of dry deal board, underneath; which suddenly conceiving flame, gave fire to the device of the masque, all of oiled paper, and dry fir, etc. And so, in a moment, disposed itself among the rest of that combustible matter that it was past any man's approach before it was almost discovered. Two hours begun and ended that ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... fire, and was blazing away along the yard fiercely; and the flame soon reached the loftier sails and running rigging; the fire below was raging between decks, and rising in successive bursts of flame from the hatchways. The vessel had been filled with combustible material, and the doomed brig, in a short space of time, was one ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... are either movable, and exhaustible in a given place, or firmly connected with the land. The first category embraces, for instance, such wild animals and plants as serve some useful purpose, minerals, above all, fossil combustible matter(205)—the "black diamonds," coal, of which, with its canals, Franklin said that it had made England what it is. The economical effect of their moveable character is best seen, when the use ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... two top-mauls, and several handspikes and pinch-bars aboard, and with these they attacked bulkheads and spare woodwork, and fed the fires with the fragments; for a glance down the hatches had shown them nothing more combustible and detachable in the cargo than a few layers of railroad iron, which covered and blocked the ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... of readily combustible wood was prepared. The body was taken charge of by persons chosen to perform the last sacred rites, and firmly bound in skins or blankets, and then placed upon the funeral pyre, with all the personal effects of ...
— Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity - Their History, Customs and Traditions • Galen Clark
... of party spirit is, although temporary, subsiding after the cause that produced it has passed away, and leaving the kind peasant to the natural, affectionate, and generous impulses of his character. But poor Paddy, unfortunately, is as combustible a material in politics or religion as in fighting—thinking it his duty to take the weak side*, without any other consideration than because it is the ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... than that supplied by seed trees afterward. Nor is the system feasible where there is much fir or other species less fire-resisting than pine. It is dangerous in practice except where there is very little combustible matter on the ground and fire is generally easy of control, and exceedingly dangerous to advocate because serves as a pretext and example for indiscriminate carelessness with fire under all conditions. Finally, the alleged immunity of pine from injury by ground ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen
... element, and coal gas comes next as the medium of buoyancy. This for the free and non-navigable balloon, though for the airship, carrying means of combustion, and in military work liable to ignition by explosives, the gas helium seems likely to replace hydrogen, being non-combustible. ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... evident to the impartial observer that Voltaire's visit could only have ended as it did—in an explosion. The elements of the situation were too combustible for any other conclusion. When two confirmed egotists decide, for purely selfish reasons, to set up house together, everyone knows what will happen. For some time their sense of mutual advantage may induce ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... they believed that by this means they would distract the attention of the besieged, and prevent them taking a steady aim at those in the front. The sight of the torches raised in Mr Jefferson's mind an apprehension which he had not before entertained. He knew too well the combustible nature of his dwelling, and that if it entered the minds of the rebels, they might without difficulty set ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... electrical element, he devised a means to draw it from the clouds by rods erected on elevated buildings. As this was not sufficiently demonstrative he succeeded at length in drawing the lightning from the clouds by means of a kite and silken string, so as to ignite spirits and other combustible substances by an electric spark similar to those from a Leyden jar. To utilize his discovery of the identity of lightning with electricity he erected lightning-rods to protect buildings, that is, to convey the lightning ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... where he mentions, 'those impure tales which will be the eternal opprobrium of their ingenious authour.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, Lord Hailes has forgot. There is nothing in Prior that will excite to lewdness. If Lord Hailes thinks there is, he must be more combustible than ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... that there existed, at some one period of its history which is not distinctly stated, a matron of such destructive principles, and so familiarized to the use and composition of inflammatory and combustible engines, that she was called 'The Match Maker;' by which nickname and byword she is recognized in the Family legends to this day. Surely there can be no reasonable doubt that this was the Spanish lady, the mother ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... reflected from the burning land; and even where the water failed, the stony course of the exhausted rivulet was a barrier against the march of the conflagration. Thus, unless the wind, now still, should rise, and waft some sparks to the parched combustible herbage immediately around us, we were saved from the fire, and our work might yet ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... some of our sailes which we had then on boord. The Exchange also being farther from the fire, afterward was more easily cleared, and fell off from abaft And as soone as God had put vs out of danger, the fire got into the fore-castle, where, I think, was store of Beniamin, and such other like combustible matter, for it flamed and ran ouer all the Carack at an instant in a maner. The Portugals lept ouer-boord in great numbers. Then sent I captaine Grant with the boat, with leaue to vse his owne discretion in sauing of them. So he brought me aboord two gentlemen, the one ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... o'clock Monday morning eight ships smeared all over the outside with pitch and rosin, their ordnance loaded with stones and bullets and filled with sulphur and other materials suddenly combustible glided out from among the English fleet and took their way silently toward the Spanish ships lying so serenely at anchor. The night was cloudy. The moon was late in its last quarter and did not rise till morning. The darkness ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... to which I had come was indeed a novel sight. Its buildings average in height one-third of ours, although they occupy nearly as much ground space. They are composed almost totally of non-combustible materials. ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... alternatives of self-grandeur and self-disgust. It is a painful matter, this endless self-scrutiny. We are all familiar with the addled ego of literature—the writer whom constant self-communion has made vulgar, acid, querulous, and vain. And yet it is remarkable that of so many who meddle with the combustible passions of their own minds so few are blown up. The discipline of living is a fine cooling-jacket ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... only seated on four little paperclips," he said, crawling from beneath her. "She's a wicker-willow lunch-basket below. She's a runnin' miracle. Have you had this combustible spirit-lamp long?" ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... in her shoes, her clothes spoiled and her bonnet looking like an over-ripe fig, with a terrible cold that made her voice only a whisper, and sneezing herself almost to pieces, Mrs. Sparsit found Bounderby at his city hotel, exploded with the combustible information she carried and fainted quite away ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... theory was that finally adopted by the board. It was that a certain kind of powder, known as 'B' powder, degenerates under heat, and becomes, in time, extremely combustible, so that it will sometimes explode ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... rusting of iron is, to all intents and purposes, the slow burning of iron. It develops heat, and, if the heat be preserved, a high temperature may be thus attained. The destruction of the first Atlantic cable was probably due to heat developed in this way. Other metals are still more combustible than iron. You may ignite strips of zinc in a candle flame, and cause them to burn almost like strips of paper. But we must now expand our definition of combustion, and include under this term, not only combustion in air, but also combustion in liquids. Water, ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... me. Royal sturgeon high sheriff, Coffey, the butcher, right to venisons of the forest from his ex. Send him back the half of a cow. Spread I saw down in the Master of the Rolls' kitchen area. Whitehatted chef like a rabbi. Combustible duck. Curly cabbage a la duchesse de Parme. Just as well to write it on the bill of fare so you can know what you've eaten. Too many drugs spoil the broth. I know it myself. Dosing it with Edwards' desiccated soup. Geese stuffed silly for them. Lobsters boiled ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... magnetism, they may be said to have little or no knowledge; and their optics extend not beyond the making of convex and concave lenses of rock crystal to assist the sight in magnifying, or throwing more rays upon, small objects and, by collecting to a focus the rays of the sun, to set fire to combustible substances. These lenses are cut with a saw and afterwards polished, the powder of crystal being used in both operations. To polish diamonds they make use of the powder of adamantine spar, or the corundum stone. In cutting different kinds of stone into groups ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... wish to abandon them if it could be avoided—we dashed on. Every now and then I looked back to observe the progress of the conflagration. Dark wreaths were rising higher and higher in the sky, and below them forked flames ever and anon darted up as the fire caught the more combustible vegetation. Borne by the wind, light powdery ashes fell around us, while we were sensible of a strong odour of burning, which made it appear as if the enemy was already close at our heels. The grass on every side was too tall and dry to enable us— as is frequently done under such circumstances, ...
— Adventures in the Far West • W.H.G. Kingston
... called on the buffo in his workshop. His two combustible Turkish pavilions were finished, ready to be fired by Ettorina, and he was full of his devils. I inquired why we were doing Guido Santo so soon; it was only a year since my last visit to Palermo, when I had witnessed his lamented end after a fortnight of starvation ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... water immediately took fire and burned like brandy, and was not extinguished until it rained. This flame is among the Indians a sign of abundance or sterility according as it exhibits the contrary qualities. There is no appearance of sulphur, saltpetre or any other combustible material. The water has not even any taste, and I can neither offer nor imagine any better explanation, than that it acquires this combustible property by passing over some aluminous land."—Galinee's journal, 1669, in "Marshall ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... serve for lights in the night-time. Nero offered his gardens for this spectacle, and exhibited the games of the Circus by this dreadful illumination. Sometimes they were covered with wax and other combustible materials, after which a sharp stake was put under their chin, to make them stand upright, and they were burnt alive, to give light to ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... and ordinary, and the smiles which were intended as innocent lures from snares, instead of into them, might make trouble for all concerned. Haldane was naturally combustible, to begin with, and was now at the most inflammable ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... friends of canals bitterly opposed railroads as impractical. Snow, it was said, would block them for weeks. If locomotives were used, the sparks would make it impossible to carry hay or other things combustible. The boilers would blow up as they did on steamboats. Canals were therefore safer and cheaper. Read McMaster's History of the People of the U. S., Vol. ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... on at all hours of the day and night. Seven corpses were brought in and placed upon the pyres, built up of unsawed cord wood in cob style, raised to the height of four feet, the fire being applied to a small handful of specially combustible material at the bottom. The whole was so prepared as to ignite rapidly, and in a very few moments after the torch was applied to it, the pile was wreathed in the devouring element. The atmosphere was impregnated with offensive odors, and one was fain to get on the windward side of ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... her ladyship. 'It's a combustible material. I won't have her health injured. She shall go into the world more. She will be presented at Court, and if it's necessary to give her a dose or two to counteract her vanity, I don't object. This will wear off, or, 'si c'est veritablement une grande passion, eh bien' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... feet—perhaps higher. A bonfire is premeditated. You shall see anon, how the flames will rise. The preparations are completed; the fire is applied. Hear how it crackles and hisses! Slowly but spitefully it mounts from limb to limb, and from one combustible to another, until the whole welkin is a-blaze, and shaking as with thunder! It is a beautiful sight. The gush of unwonted radiance rolls in effulgent surges adown the vale. How the owl hoots with surprise at the interrupting light! Bird of wisdom, it is the Fourth! ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... scarcity of wood seems to have gradually led to the use of coke, brays or small coke, and peat. An abundance of coals existed in the neighbourhood: by rejecting those of inferior quality, and coking the others with great care, a combustible was obtained better fitted even than charcoal itself for the fusion of that particular kind of ore which is found in the coal-measures. Thus we find Darby's most favourite charge for his furnaces to have been five ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... river," says Dr. Thacher, "I had a fine view of this splendid conflagration. The ships were enwrapped in a torrent of fire, which, spreading with vivid brightness among the combustible rigging and running with amazing rapidity to the tops of the several masts, while all around was thunder and lightning from our numerous cannon and mortars, and in the darkness of night presented one of the most sublime and magnificent spectacles that ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... ends create their god. But seven wise men the ancient world did know, We scarce know seven who think themselves not so. When man learn'd undefiled religion, We were commanded to be all as one; Fiery disputes that union have calcined; Almost as many minds as men we find, And when that flame finds combustible earth, Thence fatuus fires, and meteors take their birth; 160 Legions of sects and insects come in throngs; To name them all would tire a hundred tongues. So were the Centaurs of Ixion's race, Who a bright cloud for Juno did embrace; And such the ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... you have alleviated, and all the schools you have established, and all the fine things you have ever done. Up in that tower you feel you are safe. But hear you not the tramp of your unpardoned sins all around the tower? They each have a match. They are kindling the combustible material. You feel the heat and the suffocation. Oh, may you leap in time, the Gospel declaring: "By the deeds of the law shall ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... explosives and pleasing Bengal lights, with which people amuse themselves, and then laughingly throw from the windows into the street. Collected together in the story below and on the ground floor, transported to shops, to warehouses and into business cabinets, they find combustible material, piles of wood a long time accumulated, and here do the flames enkindle. The conflagration seems to have already begun, for the chimneys roar and a ruddy light gleams through the windows; but "No," say the people above, "those below would ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... any man. There came a day when the neighboring mines shut down and the little smelter which furnished a livelihood for the honest members of the population went out of business; later the Apaches erased everything that was combustible from the landscape and the ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... whole company were soon in the wildest excitement with the work of building up a funeral pile upon the spot. At first they brought fagots and threw upon the fire, then benches from the neighboring courts and porticoes, and then any thing combustible which came to hand. The honor done to the memory of a deceased hero was, in some sense, in proportion to the greatness of his funeral pile, and all the populace on this occasion began soon to seize every thing they could ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... flames, consign to the flames. boil, digest, stew, cook, seethe, scald, parboil, simmer; do to rags. take fire, catch fire; blaze &c. (flame) 382. Adj. heated &c. v.; molten, sodden; rchauff; heating &c. v.; adust[obs3]. inflammable, combustible; diathermal[obs3], diathermanous[obs3]; burnt &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... operations with metals, not by the action on metals of things of animal or vegetable origin. Each class of substances, they said, has a life, or spirit (an essential character, we might say) of its own. "The life of sulphur," Paracelsus said, "is a combustible, ill-smelling, fatness.... The life of gems and corals is mere colour.... The life of water is its flowing.... The life of fire is air." Grant an attraction of like to like, and the reason becomes apparent for ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... he spoke an Aureole of Virtue seemed to curdle above him, while his Countenance bore an Expression of Placid Triumph, which meant that he was the real Asbestos Paragon who had been tried in the Furnace and declared Non-Combustible. ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... break. To close this mention of my own love affair, I would say that at the time of my visit to Sundridge I had reasonable cause to hope for a favorable termination. Not that I expected ever to kindle a fiery passion in Mary's breast, for she was not of the combustible sort, but I believed she liked me, favored my suit, and I hoped would accept me in the end. While she was very pretty, she was not of so great beauty as to mislead her family into expecting that she would catch an earl by fishing in a duck pond, ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... luminosity of the flame. This experiment clearly shows that temperature is a most important factor in the illuminating value of a flame, and this is still further shown by a study of the action of the diluents present in coal gas, the non-combustible ones being far more deleterious than the combustible, as they not only dilute, but ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... fuel ratio than lignite. The fuel ratio measures roughly the heat or calorific power of the coal, in other words, its fuel value. However, some bituminous coals have a higher calorific power than some anthracites, because a large part of their volatile matter is combustible and yields more heat than the corresponding weight of fixed carbon in the anthracite. The fuel ratio pretty well discriminates coals of the higher ranks, and gives a classification corresponding roughly with their commercial ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... of the marshes, from the depth of one foot to that of six. That is accounted the best which is nearest the surface. It appears to be a mass of black earth held together by vegetable fibres. I know not whether the earth be bituminous, or whether the fibres be not the only combustible part; which, by heating the interposed earth red hot, make a burning mass. The heat is not very strong nor lasting. The ashes are yellowish, and in a large quantity. When they dig peat, they cut it into square pieces, and pile it up to dry beside the house. In some ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... re-creating the novel; Lamb was re-creating the human document; and Hazlitt, Coleridge, Leigh Hunt, and others were re-creating criticism. Sparks are flying all about the place, and it will be not less than a miracle if something combustible and indestructible in you does ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... sister, Phillida built no castles. Millard's politeness to her had been very agreeable, but she knew that it was only politeness. Almost every man's and every woman's imagination is combustible on one side or another. Many young women are set a-dreaming by any hint of love or marriage. But Phillida had read only sober books—knowing little of romances, there was no stock of incendiary material in her memory. ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... the department are located at 127 Mercer street, in a handsome building known as Fireman's Hall. Here are the offices of the Commissioners, the Chief Engineer, Secretary, Medical officer, Telegraph Bureau, Bureau of Combustible materials, and Fireman's Lyceum. The Lyceum contains a library of over 4000 volumes, and a collection of engravings, documents, and relics relating to the old Fire Department. All fines exacted of firemen, and those imposed ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... barrels, let's light up an Auto da Fe Of a few good combustible Lords of "the Club;" They would fume in a trice, the Whig cholera away, And there's Bucky would burn like ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... clean, convenient, nor cheap as hickory or maple. By nightfall the wagon had unsuccessfully traversed the streets and found not a single purchaser for its contents. Here and there a citizen had accepted a little as a gift, with a doubtful promise to test its combustible qualities. Eventually, Philo Scovill was persuaded into the purchase of a moderate quantity at two dollars per ton, and promised to put in grates at the Franklin House ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... congenial to his nature to have made a great bonfire of it before he left the world; but a little consideration showed such a feat to be impossible, for books may be burnt in detail by extraneous assistance, but it is a curious fact that, combustible as paper is supposed to be, books won't burn. If you doubt this, pitch that folio Swammerdam or Puffendorf into a good rousing ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... cat's-meat man down the next court to come and fetch you away to the Dogs' Home, in bounces your landlady, and with two or three "Well, I nevers!" and "There's an imperent 'ussey, for you!" nearly bursts the patent non-combustible bootlace you lent her last night to hang the brass locket ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890 • Various
... of labour shall be bestowed on the public roads—the best modes of conducting our schools and colleges—the comparative merits of the candidates for office, or the policy of some proposed change in the laws. Man is made, you know, of very combustible materials, and may be kindled as effectually by a spark falling at the right time, in the right place, as when within reach of ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... tall fires are seen blazing redly against the cold, dark, autumnal sky, surrounded by groups of young men and boys busily engaged in urging them with fresh fuel into intenser activity. To feed these bonfires, everything combustible which could be begged or stolen from the neighboring villages, farm-houses, and fences is put in requisition. Old tar-tubs, purloined from the shipbuilders of the river-side, and flour and lard barrels from the village-traders, are stored away for days, and perhaps weeks, in the woods or in ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... happy in his rationalistic explanations of the whole mass of myths. He supposes a terrific storm, in which the lightning kindled the combustible materials of the cities, aided perhaps by an earthquake; but this shows a disposition to break away from the exact statements of the sacred books which would have been most severely condemned by ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... wood to be found, however, but fortunately the rocks were covered with a poor, dry species of lichen. Of this they made an ample provision, as well as of a plant called LLARETTA, the root of which burns tolerably well. This precious combustible was carried back to the CASUCHA and heaped up on the hearth. It was a difficult matter to kindle it, though, and still more to keep it alight. The air was so rarefied that there was scarcely oxygen enough ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... classes—those which liquefy on being heated, as sulphur, nitre, etc., and those which do not. The metals were considered to be composed of sulphur and mercury. These substances are themselves compounds, but they act as elements in the composition of metals. Sulphur represented their combustible aspect, and also that which gave them their solid form; while mercury was that to which their weight and powers of becoming fluid ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... excitement of their powers they have died at an early age, as if in consequence of the premature exhaustion of their nervous energy. Mozart, Burns, Byron, Poe and Chatterton may be cited as remarkable examples of this result. Hence, although their light may have burned with a brighter glow, like a combustible substance in an atmosphere of oxygen, the consumption of material was more rapid, and though it may have shone with a more sober lustre without such aid, we can not but believe that it would have been steadier and less premature ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... was when thousands of barrels of petroleum had been stored up in vats, and when the combustible fluid was spouting from the wells at the rate of many hundred barrels per day. Before the present deep wells were bored, oil was not produced in sufficient quantities to cause such a conflagration, and there was never seen upon the creek a stratum of the fluid of such ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... acetylene entirely does away with the daily cleaning of lamps, and, if the pipe-fitting work has been done properly, yields light absolutely unaccompanied by smell. Again, unless most carefully managed, the lamp-room of a large house, with its store of combustible oil, and its collection of greasy rags, must unavoidably prove a sensible addition to the risk of fire. The analogue of the lamp- room when acetylene is employed is the generator-house, and this is a separate building at some distance from the residence proper. There need be ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... words, vulgar as they are; for, of all words in our vernacular tongue, to express comfort and security from ill, commend us to the expletive of free and easy. We had rather not meddle with civil or religious liberty: they are as combustible as the Cotopaxi, or the new governments, of South America; and our attempts at reformation do not extend beyond paper and print, which the unamused reader may burn or not, as he pleases without searing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 392, Saturday, October 3, 1829. • Various
... combustible matter.] Whenever an entry or air-way becomes so dry that the air becomes charged with dust, the owner, lessee or agent shall cause such entry or air-way to be sprinkled, and all accumulated matter, explosive in its nature, shall be ...
— Mining Laws of Ohio, 1921 • Anonymous
... proper in themselves to retard the first explosions of a combustible constitution, were strengthened, as I have already hinted, by the effect the first moments of sensuality produced in me, for notwithstanding the troublesome ebullition of my blood, I was satisfied with the species of voluptuousness I had already been ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... each bring his own candle or small lantern, not for illumination but for safety. When the visitors have arrived on the lower platform, which is near the middle of the eastern side against the wall, the guide, who has not descended the steps, lights a basket of shavings or other quick combustible on the platform above. The effect is instantaneous and magical. Suddenly from an obscurity so profound that only the outline of the nearest columns can be faintly discerned by the flicker of a candle, the entire maze of columns flashes into being resplendent and white. The roof ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... partly formed their medium of intercourse with Italy and Asia Minor. The constant readiness of these men moving to and fro to carry everywhere sparks from the scene of conflagration tended in a high degree to excite apprehension, especially at a time when so much combustible matter was everywhere accumulated in the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... people throughout the world, and the pride and glory of American citizens. Every year since the adoption of the old Constitution, have discordant elements cropped out, and incidents transpired, which demonstrated to every rational mind, that as time rolled on, the accumulation of combustible elements would ultimately explode, and shake the civilized ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... joined to anything else. When oil froths, it does not let any wind in, by reason of the contiguity and subtility of its parts; and this is also the cause why fire is nourished by it. For fire feeds upon nothing but what is moist, for nothing is combustible but what is so; for when the fire is kindled, the air turns to smoke, and the terrene and grosser parts remain in the ashes. Fire only preys upon the moisture, which is its natural nourishment. Indeed, water, wine, and ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... JOKIM, softly, as MAPLE-BLUNDELL went off, viciously stamping on the carpet that covers the Library floor, "we all have our troubles, and when I think of MAPLE-BLUNDELL and his combustible carpet I am able the better to bear the woes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various
... up a quantity of the seared grass, and heaped a dry couch upon which Ben laid his charge within the genial heat that came from the cedar tree. Then they gathered up all the combustible matter within reach, and began to kindle a fire so near to the place where she lay that its heat must help to drive back the chill of death if there was a spark of life ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... not perhaps be generally known even to our own citizens that there is in the town of Riga, N.Y., one mile east of Churchville, on the farm of Linus Pierson, a Mineral Spring, the gases from which are sufficiently combustible to burn as clear and brightly as a lamp, at all times of the day and night, and which is never exhausted. The spring is located near the bathing-house on the farm, and a tube has been constructed, leading from the spring to the rooms, by means of which ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... than one consultation together, the English commanders determined to resort to stratagem. They sent for a number of useless hulks from Dover, and having filled them with every kind of combustible, sent them all aflame on Sunday night into the thick of the enemy. The result was a panic; cables were cut and frantic attempts made to escape what seemed imminent and wholesale destruction. The ships fell foul of each other; ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... my settlement, about forty yards from the creek of St. John, till I could build my house, and lodging {19} for my people. As my hut was composed of very combustible materials, I caused a fire to be made at a distance, about half way from the creek, to avoid accidents: which occasioned an adventure, that put me in mind of the prejudices they have in Europe, from the relations that are commonly current. The account I am going to give of it, may have upon ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... in Manila December 21, 1751, ordered the extermination of the Mahometans with fire and sword; the fitting out of Visayan corsairs, with authority to extinguish the foe, burn all that was combustible, destroy the crops, desolate their cultivated land, make captives, and recover christian slaves. One-fifth of the spoil (the Real quinto) was to belong to the King, and the natives were to be exempt from the payment ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... way, and nobody, to my sight, endeavouring to quench it, but to remove their goods, and leave all to the fire, and having seen it get as far as the Steele-yard, and the wind mighty high, and driving it into the City: and every thing after so long a drought proving combustible, even the very stones of churches, and among other things, the poor steeple [St, Lawrence Poultney, of which Thomas Elborough was Curate.] by which pretty Mrs. — lives, and whereof my old schoolfellow Elborough is parson, taken fire in the very top, ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... many credulous as there were skeptics. There is, however, no reliable evidence to support the belief in the spontaneous combustion of the body. A few apochryphal cases only have been recorded. The opinion that the tissues of drunkards might be so saturated with alcohol as to render the body combustible is disproved by the simple experiment of placing flesh in spirits for a long time and then trying to burn it. Liebig and others found that flesh soaked in alcohol would burn only until the alcohol was consumed. That various substances ignite spontaneously is explained by chemic phenomena, the ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... huger stones, striking against each other as they fell, broke into countless fragments, emitting sparks of fire, which caught whatever was combustible within their reach; and along the plains beyond the city the darkness was now terribly relieved, for several houses, and even vineyards, had been set on flames; and at various intervals the fires rose sullenly and fiercely against the solid gloom. To ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... respiratory processes like those in malting. It seems fairly established that when the preliminary heating process of fermentation is drawing to a close, the cotton, hay, &c., having been converted into a highly porous friable and combustible mass, may then ignite in certain circumstances by the occlusion of oxygen, just as ignition is induced by finely divided metals. A remarkable point in this connexion has always been the necessary conclusion that the living bacteria concerned must be exposed to temperatures of at least ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... idea that the earth is so hot," answered Raffles Haw. "It is certain that the increased temperature in coal mines depends upon the barometric pressure. There are gases in the earth which may be ignited, and there are combustible materials as we see in the volcanoes; but if we came across anything of the sort in our borings, we could turn a river or two down the shaft, and get the better of ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... is to develop a long, well-filled ear. To this end, available ammonia or nitrogen, phosphorus, potash, and magnesia are indispensable. Ammonia (spirits of hartshorn) is necessary to aid in forming the combustible part of the seed. The other ingredients named are required to assist in making the incombustible part of the grain. In 100 parts of the ash of wheat, there are ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... of a pulverizing apparatus, with the residue produced from the distillation of the naphtha, which Baku and Derbent produce in such inexhaustible quantities. At certain stations on the line there are vast reservoirs of this combustible mineral, from which the tenders are filled, and it is burned in specially adapted fireboxes. In a similar way naphtha is used on the steamboats on the Volga and the other affluents of ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... in order. I hope in God, this article will be rectified before the new constitution is accepted. You ask me, if any thing transpires here on the subject of South America? Not a word. I know that there are combustible materials there, and that they wait the torch only. But this country probably will join the extinguishers. The want of facts worth communicating to you, has occasioned me to give a little loose to dissertation. We must be contented to amuse, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... short time that he absented himself upon some occasion, fastened upon the basis, which was of dry deal board, underneath; which suddenly conceiving flame, gave fire to the device of the masque, all of oiled paper, and dry fir, etc. And so, in a moment, disposed itself among the rest of that combustible matter that it was past any man's approach before it was almost discovered. Two hours begun and ended that ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... words, that car had been standing there, the engine running, until it simply stopped for want of fuel." He paused while we listened intently, then resumed. "The gas-engine and gas- motor have brought with them another of those unanticipated menaces of which I spoke. Whenever the explosion of the combustible mixture is incomplete or of moderated intensity a gas of which little is known may be ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... had strongly guarded. Hannibal resorted to his usual resource, cunning and stratagem, for means of escape. He collected a herd of oxen. He tied fagots across their horns, filling the fagots with pitch, so as to make them highly combustible. In the night on which he was going to attempt to pass the defile, he ordered his army to be ready to march through, and then had the oxen driven up the hills around on the further side of the Roman detachment which was guarding the ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... infernal machines, or "hell-burners," as they were called, a fleet of thirty-two smaller vessels was prepared. Covered with tar, turpentine, rosin, and filled with inflammable and combustible materials, these barks were to be sent from Antwerp down the river in detachments of eight every half hour with the ebb tide. The object was to clear the way, if possible, of the raft, and to occupy the attention of the Spaniards, until the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... been drawn out in due form about midday, I sent down notice to the old lady, who seemed extremely pleased and thankful. The ceremonies of bathing were gone through before three, while the wood and other combustible materials for a strong fire were collected and put into the pit. After bathing she called for a pan (betel-leaf) and ate it, then rose up, and with one arm on the shoulder of her eldest son, and the other on that of her nephew, approached the fire. As she rose up fire was set to the pile, and it ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... scene of action by Mr. Fontaine. The "enemy" was seldom obvious, but during the war it inflicted a loss upon us of eight killed and twenty-three wounded. We took various stockades, shot from sixty to eighty Malays, burned a good deal of what was combustible, and gave stability to the shaky rule of the Datu Klana, Syed Abdulrahman. Of this prince, who owed his firm seat on the throne to British intervention, the Resident wrote in 1880:—"Loyal to his engagements, he had gained the good will of the British Government. ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... knowledge, circumstances frequently occur, in which the ebullition of party spirit is, although temporary, subsiding after the cause that produced it has passed away, and leaving the kind peasant to the natural, affectionate, and generous impulses of his character. But poor Paddy, unfortunately, is as combustible a material in politics or religion as in fighting—thinking it his duty to take the weak side*, without any other consideration than because it ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... Bohemia, as they idly think; but falling down the Valley of the Bober, or Bober and Queiss, into the Lausitz (to Gorlitz, Guben, where we have Magazines for him), comes upon it from the southeast,—nobody expecting any of them. Three simultaneous Armies hurled on the head of your Friedrich; combustible deluges flowing towards him, as from the ends of Germany; so opaque, silent, yet of fire wholly: will not that surprise him!' thinks Bruhl. These are the schemes of the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... because of shade, would begin to amount to something much quicker than that supplied by seed trees afterward. Nor is the system feasible where there is much fir or other species less fire-resisting than pine. It is dangerous in practice except where there is very little combustible matter on the ground and fire is generally easy of control, and exceedingly dangerous to advocate because serves as a pretext and example for indiscriminate carelessness with fire under all conditions. Finally, ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen
... flows that great sensibility of disrespect, that quick resentment, that tinder of the mind that kindles at every spark, and justly marks them out for the genus irritabile among mankind. And from this combustible temper, this serious anger for no very serious things, things looked on by most as foreign to the important points of life, as consequentially flows that inheritance of ridicule, which devolves on them, from generation to generation. As soon as they become authors, they become like Ben Jonson's ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... Bastion was a large range of barracks built of wood by the New England troops after their capture of the fortress in 1745. So flimsy and combustible was it that the French writers call it a "house of cards" and "a paper of matches." Here were lodged the greater part of the garrison: but such was the danger of fire, that they were now ordered to leave it; and they accordingly lay in the streets or along the foot of the ramparts, under ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... was already half-way across the street. The fire had spread with astonishing rapidity. Some combustible material in the second story had exploded with great force, and this had seemed to scatter the fire. The entire second story was on fire now, as well as the one ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... petroleum balls and fusees into the cellars. I saw a soldier suddenly seize a man as he was apparently harmlessly walking along the street; his pockets were emptied and found to contain cartridges and combustible balls of various sizes. Another soldier and a sailor rushed to the spot; the latter drew his revolver, and I expected would have shot the man then and there, but he was satisfied on seeing his comrade prick him sharply with his bayonet. The two ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... were never afterwards heard of. Three convicts were also wounded, and one killed by them, near Botany Bay: similar to the vindictive spirit which Mr. Cook found to exist among their countrymen at Endeavour River, they more than once attempted to set fire to combustible matter, in order to annoy us. Early on the morning of the 18th of December, word was brought that they were assembled in force, near the brick-kilns, which stand but a mile from the town of Sydney. The terror of those who brought the first intelligence ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... by nature as carefully as the route of a railroad from one city to another. The most natural interpretation which the common observer would put upon the manifestations of one of these autumnal maladies would be that some noxious combustible element had found its way into the system which must be burned to ashes before the heat which pervades the whole body can subside. Sometimes the fire may smoulder and seem as if it were going out, or were quite extinguished, and again it will find some new material to seize upon, and flame ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... we had little to hope for. While the masts and rigging were all enveloped in flame, a dense smoke was rising from the hold, indicating that the electric fluid, in its descent through the ship, had come in contact with something in the cargo that was highly combustible. Passengers and crew stood looking on with pale, horror-stricken faces. But the captain, a man of self-possession, aroused all from their lethargy by ordering, in a loud, clear voice, the masts and rigging to be cut away instantly. This order was obeyed. Over went, crashing ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... hand nor to the left—we find of a sudden that all our gay hopes are flown; and the only slender consolation that some friend can give us, is to point where they were once to be found. And lo! if we are not of that combustible race, who will rather beat their heads in spite, than wipe their brows with the curate, we look round and say, with the nauseated listlessness of the king of Israel, "All is vanity and ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... the ordeal lasted, then, having consumed everything of a combustible nature the fire burnt itself out. Almost miraculously the flames had failed to gain a hold upon the scrub on the nearmost bank. The river had formed the furthermost limit, but across the stream as far as the eye could reach there was nothing to be seen ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... Colonel, I thought you did, by your taking fire so quickly. I am glad to hear you say you did not. How soon a little spark kindles into a flame; especially when it meets with such combustible spirits! ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... tower, which was stationed near one of the gates, and by voice and action stimulated his soldiers to deeds of daring. His death-dealing javelin never missed its aim. The Egyptians employed every possible agent of defence,—showering down boiling oil, combustible materials, and various descriptions of missile, on the heads of their assailants. During the first day the Crusaders were repulsed at every point; but on the morrow fortune turned. The first half of the day was with the Egyptians, who cast lighted torches against the wooden engines of the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... fatal when the flames arrived. And after groping some distance along the trench, he found the depth diminished, but the fire was not three hundred paces distant. His heart sank within him. But when on the eve of returning to his former position, with a resolution to remove as much of the combustible matter as possible, a gleam of joy spread over his features, as, casting a glance in a contrary direction from that they had recently pursued, he beheld the identical mound he had ascended before dark, and from which his unsteady and erratic riding in the night had fortunately ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... time hanging over the European world. If it should break forth into a storm, who can insure us that in its progress a part of its fury would not be spent upon us? No reasonable man would hastily pronounce that we are entirely out of its reach. Or if the combustible materials that now seem to be collecting should be dissipated without coming to maturity, or if a flame should be kindled without extending to us, what security can we have that our tranquillity will long remain ...
— The Federalist Papers
... of it all, but did not therefore draw back; and looking fearlessly at the pile heaped with all these combustible materials intended for his martyrdom, he did not any the more cease from his work. He resisted, and accepted ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... on the public roads—the best modes of conducting our schools and colleges—the comparative merits of the candidates for office, or the policy of some proposed change in the laws. Man is made, you know, of very combustible materials, and may be kindled as effectually by a spark falling at the right time, in the right place, as when within reach of a ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... determined how his life was to end. Cyrus was greatly interested in this narrative; but, in the mean time, the interpreting of the conversation had been slow, a considerable period had elapsed, and the officers had lighted the fire. The pile had been made extremely combustible, and the fire was rapidly making its way through the whole mass. Cyrus eagerly ordered it to be extinguished. The efforts which the soldiers made for this purpose seemed, at first, likely to be fruitless; but they were aided very soon ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... of the starch group or the sugar group, are composed chiefly of three elements: carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen; they are therefore combustible, and are great energy producers. On the other hand, they are worthless for cell growth and repair, and if we limited our diet to carbohydrates, we should be like a man who had fuel but no engine capable ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... my own love affair, I would say that at the time of my visit to Sundridge I had reasonable cause to hope for a favorable termination. Not that I expected ever to kindle a fiery passion in Mary's breast, for she was not of the combustible sort, but I believed she liked me, favored my suit, and I hoped would accept me in the end. While she was very pretty, she was not of so great beauty as to mislead her family into expecting that she would catch an earl by fishing in ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... purity in different things, especially in cotton, which is nothing but the skin of the seeds of the cotton plant. Now cotton, combined with cold nitric acid, is transformed into a substance eminently insoluble, eminently combustible, eminently explosive. Some years ago, in 1832, a French chemist, Braconnot, discovered this substance, which he called xyloidine. In 1838, another Frenchman, Pelouze, studied its different properties; and ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... was in such a temper that the smallest spark might raise a flame. At this conjuncture fire was set in two places at once to the vast mass of combustible matter; and in a moment the whole ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to hold out to the obscurer and more practical assertors of freedom. This was at no time more remarkable than in the present Session, during the discussion of those arbitrary measures, the Treason and Sedition Bills, when sparks were struck out, in the collision of the two principles, which the combustible state of public feeling at the moment rendered not a little perilous. On the motion that the House should resolve itself into a Committee upon the Treason Bill, Mr. Fox said, that "if Ministers were determined, by means of the corrupt influence they already possessed ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... hint, my respectable friends, at the show of dirty faces which you would present without my pains to keep you clean. Nor will I remind you how often, when the midnight bells make you tremble for your combustible town, you have fled to the town-pump and found me always at my post firm amid the confusion and ready to drain my vital current in your behalf. Neither is it worth while to lay much stress on my claims to a medical diploma as the physician whose simple rule of ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... as ill effects as can happen in a society; for in such a case, the closeness acquired by community, instead of serving for mutual defence, serves only to increase the danger. Such a system is like a city, where trades that require constant fires are much exercised, where the houses are built of combustible materials, and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the readers of the "Irish Monthly," and who found the heat of a short Northern summer simply "intolerable," the tropics and their environs rather allure me. True, soldiers and old residents speak of places between which and the lower regions there is but a sheet of non-combustible tissue paper. Nevertheless, the writer who has lived in both places would rather, as a matter of choice, summer in the Tropics than winter ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... as for their hatred of human kind. [32] They died in torments, and their torments were imbittered by insult and derision. Some were nailed on crosses; others sewn up in the skins of wild beasts, and exposed to the fury of dogs; others again, smeared over with combustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate the darkness of the night. The gardens of Nero were destined for the melancholy spectacle, which was accompanied with a horse-race and honored with the presence of the emperor, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... coal gas comes next as the medium of buoyancy. This for the free and non-navigable balloon, though for the airship, carrying means of combustion, and in military work liable to ignition by explosives, the gas helium seems likely to replace hydrogen, being non-combustible. ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... of her sister, Phillida built no castles. Millard's politeness to her had been very agreeable, but she knew that it was only politeness. Almost every man's and every woman's imagination is combustible on one side or another. Many young women are set a-dreaming by any hint of love or marriage. But Phillida had read only sober books—knowing little of romances, there was no stock of incendiary material in her memory. Her fancy was easily touched off on the side of her religious hopes; all ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... and easy: we quote these words, vulgar as they are; for, of all words in our vernacular tongue, to express comfort and security from ill, commend us to the expletive of free and easy. We had rather not meddle with civil or religious liberty: they are as combustible as the Cotopaxi, or the new governments, of South America; and our attempts at reformation do not extend beyond paper and print, which the unamused reader may burn or not, as he pleases without searing his own ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 392, Saturday, October 3, 1829. • Various
... aspiration, the gallant Sovolofski pulled lustily, and then rubbed his fingers, with a little grimace, observing that crackers were sometimes dangerous, and that the present combustible ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... is easily procured and brought; and it is very surprising that more of this stone has not been used in Toronto, instead of wood. Brick-clay is also plentiful, and excellent white and red bricks are made; but, such is the rage for building, that the largest portion of this embryo city is of combustible pine-wood. ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... then, chiefly by oxidation of combustible materials in the tissues, produce an amount of heat which is efficient to maintain the temperature of the living body at about 98-1/2 degrees F. This process of oxidation provides not only for the heat of the body, but also for the energy required to carry ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... exist during the early eighties and its life was noisy enough for any man. There came a day when the neighboring mines shut down and the little smelter which furnished a livelihood for the honest members of the population went out of business; later the Apaches erased everything that was combustible from the landscape and the ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... in le commonly have the accent on the first syllable, as amicable, unless the second syllable have a vowel before two consonants, as combustible. ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... We are thus driven to conclude that in most {292} cases the conditions of life play a subordinate part in causing any particular modification; like that which a spark plays, when a mass of combustibles bursts into flame—the nature of the flame depending on the combustible matter, and not ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... substance; this doctrine, which seems to follow so necessarily from the experiments of the French philosophers, must be tried by the growing light of chemical science. In the oxygenating operation of inflammable and combustible bodies when burning, those ingenious chemists overlooked the operation of phlogistic matter, which has no weight, and which escapes on that occasion, as I have had occasion to show in a dissertation upon phlogiston, ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... action, and laid her alongside L'Orient. One particular only I shall add to the known account of the memorable engagement between these ships, and this I received from Sir Alexander Ball himself. He had previously made a combustible preparation, but which, from the nature of the engagement to be expected, he had purposed to reserve for the last emergency. But just at the time when, from several symptoms, he had every reason to believe ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... temperature of these abodes ranges, both in summer and winter, from 70 degrees to 80 degrees. They are lighted at night by a pine stick stuck into the wall. As the interstices between the logs are filled up with hemp and other combustible materials, fires are very common, and whole villages are frequently burnt down. In order to extinguish these conflagrations, each serf is bound to bring some particular implement—a ladder, a pail, or ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... march, had been thought so necessary a measure by all the chieftains, that even Oubacha himself was the first to authorize the act by his own example. He seized a torch previously prepared with materials the most durable as well as combustible, and steadily applied it to the timbers of his own palace. Nothing was saved from the general wreck except the portable part of the domestic utensils, and that part of the woodwork which could be applied to the manufacture ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... just in proportion to the depth to which one class sinks by industrial oppression, does the other sink through enervating indolence and exhausting indulgence. Where there is chattel slavery, there cannot be free speech: the utterance of truth may indeed be incendiary, and the rickety, combustible institution standing out of its time, must needs protect itself. There must not be free education or free inquiry. It would never do to teach the slaves; and it is likewise the interest of this form of society to retain the lower strata of ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the buffo in his workshop. His two combustible Turkish pavilions were finished, ready to be fired by Ettorina, and he was full of his devils. I inquired why we were doing Guido Santo so soon; it was only a year since my last visit to Palermo, when I had witnessed his lamented end after a fortnight of starvation in prison, and, at this rate, ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... prepared—the chambers of the mine Are cramm'd with the combustible, which, harmless While yet unkindled, as the sable sand, Needs but a spark to change its nature so, That he who wakes it from its slumbrous mood, Dreads scarce the explosion less than he who knows That 'tis his towers which meet its ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... ingenuity can devise, too severe to be inflicted. To those who have excited a spirit of resentment in the bosom of an Indian, the tomahawk and scalping knife are instruments of mercy. Death by the faggot—by splinters of the most combustible wood, stuck in the flesh and fired—maiming and disemboweling, tortures on which the soul sickens but to reflect, are frequently practiced. To an enemy of their own color, they are perhaps more cruel and ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... is modified by the proportion of digestible carbon which the food contains, and by the quantity consumed. As the kind of fuel that contains the greatest amount of combustible material evolves the most caloric when burned, so those articles of food that contain the greatest quantity of carbon produce the most heat when converted into blood. The inhabitants of the frigid zones, and individuals ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... a painful matter, this endless self-scrutiny. We are all familiar with the addled ego of literature—the writer whom constant self-communion has made vulgar, acid, querulous, and vain. And yet it is remarkable that of so many who meddle with the combustible passions of their own minds so few are blown up. The discipline of living is a fine ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... Raffaelle owes the grandeur of his style. He was taught by him to elevate his thoughts, and to conceive his subjects with dignity. His genius, however, formed to blaze and to shine, might, like fire in combustible matter, for ever have lain dormant if it had not caught a spark by its contact with Michael Angelo: and though it never burst out with that extraordinary heat and vehemence, yet it must be acknowledged to be a more ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... the people faster than they could master them; but the fire began to waken them fast enough, and our fellows were glad to keep a little together in bodies; for the fire grew so raging, all the houses being made of light combustible stuff, that they could hardly bear the street between them, and their business was to follow the fire for the surer execution. As fast as the fire either forced the people out of those houses which were burning, or frighted them out of others, our people were ready at their doors ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... other castles, made use of fire-balls, which they threw with their hands, designing to burn the doors of the castles. But the Spaniards from the walls let fall great quantities of stones, and earthen pots full of powder, and other combustible matter, which forced them to desist. Captain Morgan seeing this desperate defence made by the Spaniards, began to despair of success. Hereupon, many faint and calm meditations came into his mind; ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... the main body of the Indians lay concealed, while three or four who made the attack attempted thereby to decoy the whites outside of the defenses. Failing in this, they set fire to an old fence and corn-crib, and two stables, both long enough built to be thoroughly combustible. These had previously protected their approach in that direction. Captain Asa Reese was in command of our little fort. 'Boys,' said he, 'some of you must run over to Hinkston's or Harrison's.' These were one and a half and two miles off, but in different ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... clothing, suffice for his nightly couch. A piece of wood, a broken chair, an old chest for a table, more he needs not; a tea-kettle, a few pots and dishes, equip his kitchen, which is also his sleeping and living room. When he is in want of fuel, everything combustible within his reach, chairs, door-posts, mouldings, flooring, finds its way up the chimney. Moreover, why should he need much room? At home in his mud-cabin there was only one room for all domestic purposes; more than one room his family does not need in England. So the custom of ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... preoccupation had made him forget his wine and his cigar. He emptied the glass at a single draught, but it proved far more difficult to light the cigar. "Zounds! this is a non-combustible," he growled. "When I arrive at smoking ten sous cigars, I sha'n't come here ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... Bert and Fred yelled for mercy, but got none. With final blows they were turned loose and vanished into the night. Within a few minutes the pepper in the bonfire had burned out. Then the revelers drew nearer, piling on other combustible stuff. ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock
... chamber window, he saw a great fire in a dorf about half a league from the town, which he observed, almost in a moment, to flash from one end of the dorf to the other, consuming all in its way,—and thus it was said to have been in these suburbs. The reason thereof is the combustible matter whereof their houses are built, being of fir timber and boards, which, especially being old, do suddenly take fire, and violently burn, hard to be quenched, few houses escaping, especially in the dorfs, where one is on fire; ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... identical, only one is a building up or integrating process, and the other is a pulling down or disintegrating process. More than that, we can evoke fire any time, by both mechanical and chemical means, from the combustible matter about us; but we cannot evoke life. The equivalents of life do not slumber in our tools as do the equivalents of fire. Hence life is the deeper mystery. The ancients thought of a spirit of fire as they did of a spirit of health ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... creature in the universe, in its circumstances and according to its given property, can act otherwise than as it does act. Fire necessarily burns whatever combustible matter comes within the sphere of its action. Man necessarily desires what either is, or seems to be, conducive to his comfort and wellbeing. There is no independent energy, no isolated cause, no detached activity, in ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... in from every direction. Their shouts and revels swelled upon the night air. The rain began to fall in torrents. They broke into the houses for shelter; insulted maids and matrons; tore down every thing combustible for their watch fires; massacred a few of the body-guard of the queen, and, with bacchanalian songs, roasted their horses for food. And thus passed the hours of this long and dreary night, in hideous outrages for which one can hardly find a parallel in the annals of New Zealand cannibalism. ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... colocar to collocate, place. colonia colony. colono colonist, settler, farmer. colorado ruddy. colorar to color. columna column. columpio swinging. comandante commander, major. comarca district. combatir to fight. combustible m. fuel. comensal m. table companion, fellow-guest. comenzar to begin. comer to eat. cometer to commit. comico comic. comida dinner. comienzo beginning. comitiva suite, retinue. como how, as, like, when. compadre godfather, friend. companero companion. compania ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... circle was traced by a small rod, tipped apparently with sponge saturated with some combustible naphtha-like fluid, so that a pale lambent flame followed the course of the rod as Margrave guided it, burning up the herbage over which it played, and leaving a distinct ring, like that which, in our lovely native fable-talk, we ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... roughly the heat or calorific power of the coal, in other words, its fuel value. However, some bituminous coals have a higher calorific power than some anthracites, because a large part of their volatile matter is combustible and yields more heat than the corresponding weight of fixed carbon in the anthracite. The fuel ratio pretty well discriminates coals of the higher ranks, and gives a classification corresponding roughly with their commercial uses. For the lower ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... very high, the flame soon spread itself over the roof of the palace, and catching at every combustible in its way, the invaders became so terrified at the quick progress of fire which threatened to consume themselves as well as their plunder, that they quitted the spot with precipitation. Decrying the count and his soldiers at a short distance, they directed ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... large but low hearths on the ground of small wood, sticks, and other inflammable rubbish and refuse, on which they place the newly formed articles, and then set the floor on fire, until the whole is thoroughly burnt. Fragments of broken objects, etc., are not removed. The combustible material is thus reduced to ashes, and the broken pieces remain within them; their convex surfaces, of course, falling outwards, and thus resting on the floor. In this manner a thick layer of ashes and ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier
... thus formed by a weak union of carbon with hydrogen are called hydrocarbons. They comprise nearly all the highly inflammable vegetable substances. Their being combustible means simply that they have a great disposition to resume their union with oxygen—combustion being nothing other than a more or less violent return of a substance to a union with oxygen or some other such substance, ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... out,' said her ladyship. 'It's a combustible material. I won't have her health injured. She shall go into the world more. She will be presented at Court, and if it's necessary to give her a dose or two to counteract her vanity, I don't object. This will wear off, or, 'si c'est veritablement une grande passion, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... his startled hearers listened in silence; but soon the passions of that adventurous age rose responsive to his words. The combustible French nature burst into flame. The enthusiasm of the soldiers rose to such a pitch that Gourgues had much ado to make them wait till the moon was full before tempting the perils of the Bahama Channel. His time came at length. The moon rode high ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... placed higher than can be reached by hand without mounting upon any steps or ladders; i. e., seven to seven and a half feet. The system of shelving should all be constructed of iron or steel, instead of surrounding the books on three sides with combustible wood, as is done in most libraries. Shelves of oxidized metal will be found smooth enough to prevent any abrasion of bindings. Shelves should be easily adjustable to any height, to accommodate the various sizes ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... more before the special day. The town presented an appearance similar to the Fourth of July in the United States. The streets were full of temporary booths, and all the inhabitants were out of doors. Figures twelve or fifteen inches long, made of paper, rags, or other combustible material, in various colors, representing Judas, and stuffed with firecrackers and powder, were sold to men and boys, to be fired at the proper time. Some of these figures were of life size, containing rockets and blue lights. Judas was represented with ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... with the torches. There was nothing now available for these but such dry twigs and branches as they could gather from the ground, or the adjacent scrub, as they went; and while the small twigs were so exceedingly combustible that they were consumed in a minute or two, the larger ones refused to burn at all. And finally even the professor himself at length very reluctantly came to the conclusion that the okapi was irretrievably ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... of passing judgment upon him, and find relief in leaving him to that tribunal which alone can measure the extent of human responsibility, and sound the depths of the heart. Lawson threw into the conflagration all the combustible materials his eloquence and talents, heated, it is to be feared, by resentment, could contribute. Dr. Bentley, in his "Description and History of Salem" (Mass. Hist. Coll., 1st series, vol. vi.) ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... dying away in hoarse murmurs, as if to gather strength for the new and more furious outburst that the next moment followed, it kept on its terrific march till it reached the central elevation, which embraced the most tangled, densely covered, and combustible part of the slash, and on which had been left standing an enormous dry pine, that towered so up high above the surrounding forest as to have long served as a landmark for the hunters and fishermen, in setting their courses through the woods or over the ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... heat of summer, and especially after the excessive dryness occasioned by the hot winds, the whole face of the country becomes, as it were, combustible, and bush-fires have at such times burst forth apparently spontaneously, and spread with great rapidity. The "Black Thursday" of the colony, some fifteen years since, when fire covered many hundreds of miles, ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... so hot, so tormenting, so intolerably insupportable, as the quickest apprehensions of, and the immediate sinking under, that guilt and indignation that is proportional to the offence. Should all the wood, and brimstone, and combustible matter on earth be gathered together for the tormenting of one body, yet that cannot yield that torment to that which the sense of guilt and burning-hot application of the indignation of God will do to the soul; yea, suppose the fire wherewith the body is tormented in hell should be seven times ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... rectangular triangle, all the lines from the circumference of which meeting in a center, by holding it in the light of the sun they can collect and concentrate all its rays at this one point of convergence; where the air will now become rarefied, and any light, dry, combustible matter will kindle as soon as applied, under the effect of the rays, which here acquire the substance and active force of fire. Some are of opinion that these vestals had no other business than the preservation ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... however, but fortunately the rocks were covered with a poor, dry species of lichen. Of this they made an ample provision, as well as of a plant called LLARETTA, the root of which burns tolerably well. This precious combustible was carried back to the CASUCHA and heaped up on the hearth. It was a difficult matter to kindle it, though, and still more to keep it alight. The air was so rarefied that there was scarcely oxygen enough in it to support combustion. At least, this was ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... Minister at War shall send to the army on the coast of Rochelle all the combustible materials necessary to set fire to the forests and underwood of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... out of the glass jar into the earthenware one. In one second follows a series of sharp reports from inside the jar, which seems suddenly to have become filled with highly combustible crackers. The Professor drops the jar as if he had burnt his fingers, and the cracking and popping go on inside. Ladies rise frightened. Layder suddenly ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... immediately utilized in the fire of the "Alaska," and proved an excellent combustible. The only fault was that it choked up the chimney, which necessitated a daily cleaning. As for its odor, that would doubtless have been very disagreeable to southern passengers, but to a crew composed of Swedes and Norwegians, it was only a ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... the great square of Caxamarca. It was the evening of the twenty-ninth of August, 1533. The clanking of chains was heard as the victim, manacled hand and foot, toiled painfully over the stone pavement of the square. He was bound by chains to the stake; the combustible fagots were piled up around him. Friar Vincent then, it is said, holding up the cross before the victim, told him that if he would embrace Christianity he should be spared the cruel death by the ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... to the westward they could see flames shooting from the windows of a warehouse. Its contents must have been highly combustible, for they were burning like chaff in a furnace draught. As they stood and watched the conflagration a second explosion occurred, and so close at hand that the ground seemed to rock beneath their feet. And with ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... N.—76.2 E. Celebrated place of Hindu pilgrimage with a famous temple of the goddess Jawalamukhi, built over some jets of combustible gas. ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... attention for a moment on the gunpowder which urges the cannon-ball. This is composed of combustible matter, which if burnt in the open air would yield a certain amount of heat. It will not yield this amount if it perform the work of urging a ball. The heat then generated by the gunpowder will fall short of that ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... inevitable that not merely questions of Church property and of the relations with the Papacy should come up for revision, but also those issues between Church and State which had remained in abeyance during the fifteenth century. The divorce was the spark which ignited the flame, but the combustible materials had been long existent. If the divorce had been all, there would have been no Reformation in England. After the death of Anne Boleyn, Henry (p. 233) might have done some trifling penance at his subjects' expense, made the Pope a present, or waged war on one of Clement's orthodox foes, ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... sufficient time to enable the chief defences to be blown up and the harbour fleet to be destroyed. If you will so far favour me, I should be gratified by having an opportunity of demonstrating to your strong mind, free from professional bias, the fact that combustible ships may be not only placed on a parity with stone forts fitted to fire red-hot shot, but secured from injury more effectually than ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... represents the living and store rooms. The living rooms are to be comfortably furnished, and no reason can be alleged why we should not enjoy in them absolute comfort. In our store-rooms, we will carry one year's supply of food. And in tanks of sufficient size, petroleum (or whatever combustible we conclude to be most suitable) for heating ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... spirits, to a height of some fifteen or twenty feet—perhaps higher. A bonfire is premeditated. You shall see anon, how the flames will rise. The preparations are completed; the fire is applied. Hear how it crackles and hisses! Slowly but spitefully it mounts from limb to limb, and from one combustible to another, until the whole welkin is a-blaze, and shaking as with thunder! It is a beautiful sight. The gush of unwonted radiance rolls in effulgent surges adown the vale. How the owl hoots with surprise at the interrupting ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... steamboats there was a multiplicity of arrangements and equipments for preventing and for fighting fire. One of the innovations on the new boats in this particular was the substitution of wire for the combustible rope formerly used to control the tiller, so that even in time of fire the pilot could "hold her nozzle agin' the bank." Much of the great loss of life in steamboat fires had been due to the tiller-ropes being burned and the ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... a piece of paper and brings it near the flame of a candle; another child looks on. Both are completely absorbed by the objects, both are ignorant or oblivious of the relation between the combustible object and the flame: a relation which becomes apparent only when the paper is alight. What is called the thoughtlessness of childhood prevents their seeing this unapparent fact; it is a fact which has not been sufficiently impressed upon their experience ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... gotten intelligence of their approach, would put to sea and join his forces to them. The English admiral practised here a successful stratagem upon the Spaniards. He took eight of his smaller ships, and filling them with all combustible materials, sent them one after another into the midst of the enemy. The Spaniards fancied that they were fireships of the same contrivance with a famous vessel which had lately done so much execution ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... light appeared in the same quarter, quickly increasing in size and intensity until in less than a minute a large fire, evidently caused by the ignition of a very considerable quantity of highly combustible material, was blazing fiercely in the shelter of a thick clump of overhanging bush, that seemed to almost completely shield it from the rain, which, however, had considerably moderated by this time. The dense mass of bush behind and on either side of the ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... fire should take place in a ship at anchor in port or harbor, his attention must be given to prevent the communication of the fire to other vessels or combustible objects, and to have the cables ready for slipping, boats ready, and, if advisable, springs prepared to change the position of the ship, in order to ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... flight of the Confederates. By a detour we came into a valley flanked to the east by Raccoon Mountain, and we visited a large saltpetre works at Nick-a-Jack Cave. These works we destroyed by breaking the large iron kettles and by burning all combustible structures. A portion of the detachment was sent under cover of the thick woods to the railroad east of Shellmound, a station near the river, where we expected to cut off a train of cars engaged in loading, for removal, supplies ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... first entirely charcoal; but the growing scarcity of wood seems to have gradually led to the use of coke, brays or small coke, and peat. An abundance of coals existed in the neighbourhood: by rejecting those of inferior quality, and coking the others with great care, a combustible was obtained better fitted even than charcoal itself for the fusion of that particular kind of ore which is found in the coal-measures. Thus we find Darby's most favourite charge for his furnaces to have been five ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... have the secret of a mysterious combustible known as "Greek Fire" which was unquenchable by water. I think that "Greek Fire" was nothing more or less than ordinary petroleum, which was practically unknown in Europe in 1866, though from personal experience I can say that it was well known in 1868, in which year my mother, three sisters, ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... of James and had been embellished by the pencil of Verrio and the chisel of Gibbons. Meanwhile a great extent of building had been blown up; and it was hoped that by this expedient a stop had been put to the conflagration. But early in the morning a new fire broke out of the heaps of combustible matter which the gunpowder had scattered to right and left. The guard room was consumed. No trace was left of that celebrated gallery which had witnessed so many balls and pageants, in which so many maids of honour had listened too easily to the vows and flatteries ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... for illumination but for safety. When the visitors have arrived on the lower platform, which is near the middle of the eastern side against the wall, the guide, who has not descended the steps, lights a basket of shavings or other quick combustible on the platform above. The effect is instantaneous and magical. Suddenly from an obscurity so profound that only the outline of the nearest columns can be faintly discerned by the flicker of a candle, the entire maze of columns flashes into being resplendent ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... because they were afraid of some few arquebuses with which those of the inside threatened them. But they endeavored to set fire to the convent and church three times without being able to succeed, notwithstanding that the material of the building was but little less combustible than tinder, for it was all constructed of wood, bamboo, and nipa. Those who tried to burn that edifice, regarded that as a miracle. Moreover, one can well understand the necessity that they suffered for they had no place whence to get relief, not even for the necessities of life. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... assailants, with the exception of those in the stables and other out-buildings, retreated. It was but for a short time, however; soon they appeared on the opposite side of the house, many of them carrying burning brands, which they threw under the fencing. This being of combustible materials, soon blazed up; and, sheltered by the intervening flames and smoke, the enemy opened a hot fire on us. Every now and then, however, a dark form was seen, and as surely a bullet searched it out. But the whole of our little garrison ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... labor, including all the labor in collecting the by-products; the interest on the first cost of the plant, which is considerable, and probably some outlay for repairs in excess of that in the case of ordinary ovens, has also to be charged. Mr. Jameson takes credit for the combustible gas, which is used up in the Carves ovens, but which remains over in his process, and is available, though not nearly all consumed, in raising steam for the various purposes of a colliery, including, no doubt, before long, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... recent theater fires, especially the destruction of the Ringtheater in Vienna. When Mr. Cady planned the New York house, he set about making it as absolutely fireproof as such a structure can be. It was to be non-combustible from the bottom up. There was not a stud partition in it. The floors were all of iron beams and brick arches, the masonry being exposed in the corridors, passages and vestibules, but for comfort having a covering of wood in the ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... refuge among the Greeks and Romans, as well as among the Jews, chiefly to slaves from the cruelty of their masters, and to insolvent debtors and criminals, where it was considered impious to touch them; but sometimes they put fire and combustible materials around the place, that the person might appear to be forced away, not by men, but by a god: or shut up the temple and unroofed it, that he might perish in the ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... these vast estates and the arbitrary exclusion of the many from the land produced a combustible situation. An instantaneous and distinct cleavage of class divisions was the result. Intrenched in their possessions the landed class looked down with haughty disdain upon the farming and laboring classes. On the other hand, the farm laborer with his sixteen hours work a day for a forty-cent ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... intents and purposes, the slow burning of iron. It develops heat, and, if the heat be preserved, a high temperature may be thus attained. The destruction of the first Atlantic cable was probably due to heat developed in this way. Other metals are still more combustible than iron. You may ignite strips of zinc in a candle flame, and cause them to burn almost like strips of paper. But we must now expand our definition of combustion, and include under this term, not only combustion ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... experiment clearly shows that temperature is a most important factor in the illuminating value of a flame, and this is still further shown by a study of the action of the diluents present in coal gas, the non-combustible ones being far more deleterious than the combustible, as they not only ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... Perhaps there may be such: but, if there are, those hearts may be compared, I believe, to damps, in which it is more difficult to keep fire alive than to prevent its blazing: in mine it was placed in the midst of combustible matter. ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... an antiseptic as alcohol is, and chloroform, and ammonia, and other similar bodies. Cold is an antiseptic then, but why? Because it prevents, even in the presence of a ferment, the union of oxygen gas with combustible matter. The molecules of oxygen, in order that they shall combine, and in their combination evolve heat, require to be distributed, and to be distributed by the form of motion known as heat; deprive them of this ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... the yard fiercely; and the flame soon reached the loftier sails and running rigging; the fire below was raging between decks, and rising in successive bursts of flame from the hatchways. The vessel had been filled with combustible material, and the doomed brig, in a short space of time, was one mass ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... such like discourses of fatiloquent soothsayers, interpret all things to the best. Will you teach me, quoth Panurge, how to discern flies among milk, or show your father the way how to beget children? He is, by the virtue of God, an arrant heretic, a resolute, formal heretic; I say, a rooted, combustible heretic, one as fit to burn as the little wooden clock at Rochelle. His soul goeth to thirty thousand cartsful of devils. Would you know whither? Cocks-body, my friend, straight under Proserpina's close-stool, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... coal fire. But the coal and the iron are undergoing very different processes. The coal is burning, and will presently be consumed; the iron is not burning (except in the sense that it is burning hot, which means only that it will make any combustible substance burn which is brought into contact with it), and it will not be consumed though the coal fire be maintained around it for days and weeks and months. So with the hydrogen flames which play at all times over the ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... years 716-717 A.D. the city had to face a combined attack by a Moslem navy and army. The eastern emperor, Leo the Isaurian, conducted a heroic defense, using with much effectiveness the celebrated mixture known as "Greek fire." This combustible, probably composed of sulphur, naphtha, and quicklime, was poured or hurled on the enemy's ships in order to burn them. "Greek fire," the rigors of an uncommonly severe winter, and timely aid from the Bulgarians at length compelled the Arabs to beat a retreat. Their failure to take Constantinople ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... other college generation, we try to make the celebration bigger than the stories of other celebrations that have been handed down. We'd been planning this celebration all winter and had everything combustible in ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... enormous dragon vomiting streams of fire upon its foes. All at once the flames changed colour, and were partially obscured by a thick black smoke. A large warehouse filled with resin, tar, and other combustible matters, had caught fire, and the dense vapour proceeded from the burning pitch. But it cleared off in a few minutes, and the flames burnt more brightly and fiercely ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... coals, as it may be prepared at one-fourth of the cost, and will be of greater service than a chaldron and a half of the latter. Coal dust worked up with horse dung, cow dung, saw dust, tanner's waste, or any other combustible matter that is not too expensive, will also be found a saving in the article of fuel. Nearly a third of the coals consumed in large towns and cities might be saved, if the coal ashes were preserved, instead of being thrown ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... containing, as it did, a large supply of resin drawn from the surrounding elements, confirms the view of the atmospheric conditions above stated; and this fact, as well as the damp, soggy soil in which the first forests must have grown, accounts for the formation of coal in greater quantity and more combustible in quality than is found in the more recent deposits. But stately as were those fern forests, where plants which creep low at our feet to-day, or are known to us chiefly as underbrush, or as rushes and grasses in swampy grounds, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... clothes spoiled and her bonnet looking like an over-ripe fig, with a terrible cold that made her voice only a whisper, and sneezing herself almost to pieces, Mrs. Sparsit found Bounderby at his city hotel, exploded with the combustible information she carried and fainted quite away ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... as for their enmity to mankind. Their executions were so contrived, as to expose them to derision and contempt. Some were covered over with the skins of wild beasts, that they might be torn to pieces by dogs; some were crucified; while others, having been daubed over with combustible materials, were set up for lights in the night time, and thus burned to death. For these spectacles Nero gave his own gardens, and, at the same time, exhibited there the diversions of the circus; sometimes standing in the crowd ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... trim work, and the railings of the main gallery construction are likewise of ornate treatment. All exterior doors and trim are of metal and all interior carpenter work is done with Kalomein iron protection, so that the building, in its strictest sense, will contain no combustible material. ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous
... catastrophe, which sooner or later seems certain to happen, and which nothing short of a miracle appears to prevent from taking place every night; I mean the destruction of the whole by fire. All the houses are constructed of the most combustible materials, and the greater number belonging to the native quarter are thatched. Though contrary to law, many of the warehouses contain gunpowder, while the immense quantity of oil and spirits stored up in them would render a conflagration, once commenced, most fearful. Few or no precautions ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... the sufferers. It was discovered that these incendiaries frequently skulked, towards evening, in the neighbourhood of the bezestein, where the richest merchants store their goods; some of these wretches were detected in throwing coundaks, [Footnote: "A coundak is a sort of combustible that consists only of a piece of tinder wrapped in brimstone matches, in the midst of a small bundle of pine shavings. This is the method usually employed by incendiaries—they lay this match by stealth behind a ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... Guanajay. That variety of sugar-cane known by the name of Cana de Otahiti, recognised at a distance by a fresher green, has the advantage of furnishing, on the same extent of soil, one-fourth more juice, and a stem more woody, thicker, and consequently richer in combustible matter. The refiners (maestros de azucar), pretend that the vezou (guarapo) of the Cana de Otahiti is more easily worked, and yields more crystallized sugar by adding less lime or potass to the vezou. The South Sea sugar-cane furnishes, no doubt, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... steamers— to the front, until he was quelled, and if the prey already seized could not be wrenched from his grasp, they, at all events, killed him before he could destroy more. When he boldly and openly declared war, attacking the great combustible warehouses of Tooley Street, threatening a descent on the shipping, and almost setting the Thames on fire, they sent out the whole available army from every quarter of the metropolis with all their engines of war—manuals, steamers, and floating batteries, or spouteries, and fought him ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... why, in the case of soils, the less the blackness, the less the loss on burning. If the {36} brown or black combustible part is really mould formed by the decay of plant roots, etc., then we should expect that as the percentage of mould in the soil increased, so its blackness would increase and its loss on burning would become greater. This ...
— Lessons on Soil • E. J. Russell
... wrangle about very small matters—such as, what amount of labour shall be bestowed on the public roads—the best modes of conducting our schools and colleges—the comparative merits of the candidates for office, or the policy of some proposed change in the laws. Man is made, you know, of very combustible materials, and may be kindled as effectually by a spark falling at the right time, in the right place, as when within reach ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... instrumentality of a cow. But a week after that, on the 30th of July, 1844, the same destroying spirit Joe Smith was allowed to attack me directly, to show how he would be able to kill a man in a minute, if he would be permitted. But he was seized by my guardian and cast into a combustible matter which was by his infernal electricity instantly kindled. George Karle was permitted to be drowned, because the time for establishing our centre had not yet arrived, and Karle had an important mission in the spirit world, and ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar
... They consist of a large shell of cast iron, which is round and hollow. A hole is made through the shell to receive a fusee, as it is called; this is a small pipe, or hollow piece of wood, which is filled with some combustible matter. When a bomb is about to be fired, it is filled with powder, after which the fusee is driven into the vent, or ...
— Whig Against Tory - The Military Adventures of a Shoemaker, A Tale Of The Revolution • Unknown
... torture, which their ingenuity can devise, too severe to be inflicted. To those who have excited a spirit of resentment in the bosom of an Indian, the tomahawk and scalping knife are instruments of mercy. Death by the faggot—by splinters of the most combustible wood, stuck in the flesh and fired—maiming and disemboweling, tortures on which the soul sickens but to reflect, are frequently practiced. To an enemy of their own color, they are perhaps more cruel and severe, than to the whites. ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... you teach me, quoth Panurge, how to discern flies among milk, or show your father the way how to beget children? He is, by the virtue of God, an arrant heretic, a resolute, formal heretic; I say, a rooted, combustible heretic, one as fit to burn as the little wooden clock at Rochelle. His soul goeth to thirty thousand cartsful of devils. Would you know whither? Cocks-body, my friend, straight under Proserpina's close-stool, to the very middle of the self-same infernal pan within which she, by an excrementitious ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... in 1794. The whole surface of the country for some distance is laid waste by the river of lava, which flowed in a stream or body, of twenty feet in depth, destroyed in its course vineyards, cottages, and everything combustible, consumed and nearly overwhelmed the town, and at last poured into the sea, where as it cooled, it formed a rugged termination or promontory of considerable height. The surface of this mass presented a rocky and sterile aspect, strongly opposed to the exuberance ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... give the alarm. They cautiously felt their way around, with the aid of a dark lantern, secured the ship's chronometer, her papers and some other desired objects. They then saturated with the turpentine piles of combustible material, placed about the vessel to the best advantage, and finished by depositing the shells where their explosion would ruin the machinery. All this was done so near to the fort that the sentinels on the ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... Mussulmans. A legend informs us that most of them rose from the ashes of the tail of the monkey god Hanuman. Retreating from Lanka, where the wicked Ravana, having anointed the brave hero's tail with some combustible stuff set it on fire, Hanuman, with a single leap through the air, reached Nassik, his fatherland. And here the noble adornment of the monkey's back, burned almost entirely during the voyage, crumbled into ashes, and from every sacred atom of these ashes, fallen to the ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... their hands, designing, if possible, to burn the doors of the castle. But going about to put this in execution, the Spaniards from the walls let fall great quantity of stones and earthen pots full of powder and other combustible matter, which forced them to desist from that attempt. Captain Morgan, seeing this generous defence made by the Spaniards, began to despair of the whole success of the enterprise. Hereupon many faint and calm meditations ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... are necessary. No creature in the universe, in its circumstances and according to its given property, can act otherwise than as it does act. Fire necessarily burns whatever combustible matter comes within the sphere of its action. Man necessarily desires what either is, or seems to be, conducive to his comfort and wellbeing. There is no independent energy, no isolated cause, no detached activity, in ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... believed that by this means they would distract the attention of the besieged, and prevent them taking a steady aim at those in the front. The sight of the torches raised in Mr Jefferson's mind an apprehension which he had not before entertained. He knew too well the combustible nature of his dwelling, and that if it entered the minds of the rebels, they might without difficulty set the ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... small lantern, not for illumination but for safety. When the visitors have arrived on the lower platform, which is near the middle of the eastern side against the wall, the guide, who has not descended the steps, lights a basket of shavings or other quick combustible on the platform above. The effect is instantaneous and magical. Suddenly from an obscurity so profound that only the outline of the nearest columns can be faintly discerned by the flicker of a candle, the entire maze of columns flashes into being resplendent and white. The ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... liquefy on being heated, as sulphur, nitre, etc., and those which do not. The metals were considered to be composed of sulphur and mercury. These substances are themselves compounds, but they act as elements in the composition of metals. Sulphur represented their combustible aspect, and also that which gave them their solid form; while mercury was that to which their weight and powers ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... human kind. [32] They died in torments, and their torments were imbittered by insult and derision. Some were nailed on crosses; others sewn up in the skins of wild beasts, and exposed to the fury of dogs; others again, smeared over with combustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate the darkness of the night. The gardens of Nero were destined for the melancholy spectacle, which was accompanied with a horse-race and honored with the presence of the emperor, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... number of pieces of ordnance, completely mounted and fitted with appurtenances and retinue of attendants, ready to follow in rear of an army, &c. (See BATTERING GUNS.) Also, the hinder part of a gun-carriage.—Train also signifies a line of gunpowder or other combustible material forming a communication with any body intended to be set on fire ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... experiments Stahl had been struck with the fact that certain substances, while differing widely, from one another in many respects, were alike in combustibility. From this he argued that all combustible substances must contain a common principle, and this principle he named phlogiston. This phlogiston he believed to be intimately associated in combination with other substances in nature, and in that ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... has the same set routine of experience. It springs up on land selected and laid out by a real estate speculator. The flimsiest and most combustible of buildings are rushed up. When the town has about five thousand inhabitants and these fire-trap buildings are close enough to burn one another, a fire breaks out and sweeps the whole thing away, destroying human lives, valuable stock, and priceless records; after which begins the epoch ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... [Removal of combustible matter.] Whenever an entry or air-way becomes so dry that the air becomes charged with dust, the owner, lessee or agent shall cause such entry or air-way to be sprinkled, and all accumulated ...
— Mining Laws of Ohio, 1921 • Anonymous
... told you we should not die to-day of thirst, but I am not at all sure that we don't run some risk of dying of hunger.' In point of fact, there seemed no possibility of making a fire. There was not a tree, not a shrub, not a root to be seen. As to argols, the rain had long since reduced that combustible of the desert to a liquid pulp. The pilgrims were about to partake of the primitive fare of meal steeped in cold water—a cheerless beverage to three men drenched to the skin—when at the critical juncture up ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... calf, fat foot, and slim knee, Mounted on roof and chimney, {36} The mighty roast, the mighty stew To see; As if the dismal view Were but to them a Brentford jubilee. Vainly, all-radiant Surya, sire of Phaeton (By Greeks call'd Apollo {37}), Hollow Sounds from thy harp proceed; Combustible as reed, The tongue of Vulcan licks thy wooden legs: From Drury's top, dissever'd from thy pegs, Thou tumblest, Humblest, Where late thy bright effulgence shone on high; While, by thy somerset excited, fly Ten million Billion Sparks from the pit, to gem the sable sky. ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... to ask me what had changed her regard for Ingram during that solitary year, so that she received him at the end of it as she did, I don't know that I can tell you. Slowly discovery—of herself, of him—came to her, slowly combustible stuff was heaped within her; it slowly kindled, and smouldered long. No doubt he himself blew it into clear flame by his let-drop news of Claire's death. She had not known that: she never read the newspaper, having neither time for the world's affairs nor interest ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... it not a natural supposition that it had become inwrapped in burning hydrogen, which in consequence of some great convulsion had been liberated in prodigious quantities, and then combining with other elements, had set this hapless world on fire? In such a fierce conflagration, the combustible gas would soon be consumed, and the glow would therefore begin to decline, subject, as in this case, to a second eruption, which occasioned the renewed outburst of light on the 20th ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... great apprehensions of its being set on Fire by its own Velocity, for swiftness of Motion is allow'd by the Sages and so so's to produce Fire as in Wheels, Mills and several sorts of Mechanick Engines which are frequently Fir'd, and so in Thoughts, Brains, Assemblies, Consolidators, and all such combustible Things. ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... flew to the rescue, and made a most enthusiastic attempt to check the fire; but the raging element was now past control. The flames spread through the combustible material which had been stored on the deck; and they were compelled to abandon the ill-starred steamer with the utmost precipitation, in order to save their ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... wires are extended so as to traverse practically all the streets of every city, the fire-insurance companies will find it to their advantage to promote a simple plan, depending on the use of a combustible thread passing round little pulleys in the corners of all the rooms and finally out to the front, where an electrical "contact-maker" is fixed, so that on the thread being burnt and broken at any ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... was the evening of the twenty-ninth of August, 1533. The clanking of chains was heard as the victim, manacled hand and foot, toiled painfully over the stone pavement of the square. He was bound by chains to the stake; the combustible fagots were piled up around him. Friar Vincent then, it is said, holding up the cross before the victim, told him that if he would embrace Christianity he should be spared the cruel death by the flames, and experience in its stead only the painless death of the garotte, and that the Inca ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... all the visitor had rounded up all the firewood into one heap. Now, to this combustible material the fellow was bringing a side of bacon and a small bag of flour. These he dropped on the firewood, then went back for more of ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock
... are undergoing very different processes. The coal is burning, and will presently be consumed; the iron is not burning (except in the sense that it is burning hot, which means only that it will make any combustible substance burn which is brought into contact with it), and it will not be consumed though the coal fire be maintained around it for days and weeks and months. So with the hydrogen flames which play at all times over the surface of our own ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... doubt before; as a moralist, he has taught, that virtue may disgrace; and, as a patriot, he has gratified the mean by insults on the high. Finding sedition ascendant, he has been able to advance it; finding the nation combustible, he has been able to inflame it. Let us abstract from his wit the vivacity of insolence, and withdraw from his efficacy the sympathetick favour of plebeian malignity; I do not say that we shall leave him nothing; the cause that I defend, scorns the help of falsehood; ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... instruments of defence are seldom deficient. Fifteen broken and decayed galleys were boldly launched against the enemy; but instead of the single tube of Greek fire usually planted on the prow, the sides and stern of each vessel were abundantly supplied with that liquid combustible. The engineers were dexterous; the weather was propitious; many thousand Russians, who chose rather to be drowned than burnt, leaped into the sea; and those who escaped to the Thracian shore were inhumanly slaughtered by the peasants ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... now fix our attention for a moment on the gunpowder which urges the cannon-ball. This is composed of combustible matter, which if burnt in the open air would yield a certain amount of heat. It will not yield this amount if it perform the work of urging a ball. The heat then generated by the gunpowder will ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... is evident to the impartial observer that Voltaire's visit could only have ended as it did—in an explosion. The elements of the situation were too combustible for any other conclusion. When two confirmed egotists decide, for purely selfish reasons, to set up house together, everyone knows what will happen. For some time their sense of mutual advantage may induce them to tolerate ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... struck and lighted. The paper, after a few obstinate curlings, caught fire, and Frere, blowing the young flame with his breath, the bark began to burn. He piled upon the fire all that was combustible, the hides began to shrivel, and a great column of black smoke rose up over ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... "to be quite candid with you, dear, I do not. Whatever may be the cargo that the schooner carries, it is evidently of a highly combustible character, and now seems to be fairly ignited. The fire gains ground even as we stand and gaze; and if the crew could not conquer it at the outset, they are not likely to do so now. What ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... wildest excitement with the work of building up a funeral pile upon the spot. At first they brought fagots and threw upon the fire, then benches from the neighboring courts and porticoes, and then any thing combustible which came to hand. The honor done to the memory of a deceased hero was, in some sense, in proportion to the greatness of his funeral pile, and all the populace on this occasion began soon to seize every thing they could find, ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... "darling" who deceived him. His most alluring illusion was a booby idea that his "pet" was an invalid, and she kept pouring oil on the joke to keep it burning, and pulled the wool down further and further so that hubby could not see the combustible fluid she was pouring into the flames. Her illness was one of those "to be continued" story kinds—better to-day, worse to-morrow—and she "took" to the blankets at the most annoying and inopportune moments; ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... government has many such alarms, and never appears entirely at its ease. It is fully aware of the combustible nature of the component parts of the Governing Machine. There is consequently great outlay of means to insure its safety. An immense number of public spies and functionaries are constantly employed in looking after the fires ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... ground a wide circle was traced by a small rod, tipped apparently with sponge saturated with some combustible naphtha-like fluid, so that a pale lambent flame followed the course of the rod as Margrave guided it, burning up the herbage over which it played, and leaving a distinct ring, like that which, in our lovely native fable-talk, we call the "Fairy's Ring," but yet more visible because marked in ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... more practical assertors of freedom. This was at no time more remarkable than in the present Session, during the discussion of those arbitrary measures, the Treason and Sedition Bills, when sparks were struck out, in the collision of the two principles, which the combustible state of public feeling at the moment rendered not a little perilous. On the motion that the House should resolve itself into a Committee upon the Treason Bill, Mr. Fox said, that "if Ministers were determined, by means of the corrupt ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... alleged cases already referred to. Dr. Lindsley has compiled a table of nineteen instances, from the Dictionnaire de Medecine,—not, however, of spontaneous combustion exactly, but of something akin to it; namely, the rapid ignition of the human body (which per se is not combustible) by contact with flame, as a consequence of the saturation of its tissues ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853 • Various
... more of this stone has not been used in Toronto, instead of wood. Brick-clay is also plentiful, and excellent white and red bricks are made; but, such is the rage for building, that the largest portion of this embryo city is of combustible pine-wood. ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... nobody, to my sight, endeavouring to quench it, but to remove their goods, and leave all to the fire, and having seen it get as far as the Steele-yard, and the wind mighty high and driving it into the City; and every thing, after so long a drought, proving combustible, even the very stones of churches, and among other things the poor steeple by which pretty Mrs.————lives, and whereof my old school-fellow Elborough is parson, taken fire in the very top, an there burned till it fell down: I to White Hall (with a gentleman with me who ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Confederates. By a detour we came into a valley flanked to the east by Raccoon Mountain, and we visited a large saltpetre works at Nick-a-Jack Cave. These works we destroyed by breaking the large iron kettles and by burning all combustible structures. A portion of the detachment was sent under cover of the thick woods to the railroad east of Shellmound, a station near the river, where we expected to cut off a train of cars engaged ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... commonly have the accent on the first syllable, as amicable, unless the second syllable have a vowel before two consonants, as combustible. ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... the luminosity of the flame. This experiment clearly shows that temperature is a most important factor in the illuminating value of a flame, and this is still further shown by a study of the action of the diluents present in coal gas, the non-combustible ones being far more deleterious than the combustible, as they not only dilute, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... lamp without regulating mechanism, producing an arc between the ends of parallel carbons. It consists of two parallel rods of carbon, between which is an insulating layer of non-combustible material called the colombin. Kaolin was originally employed for this part; later, as the fusion of this material was found to short- circuit the arc, a mixture of two parts of calcium sulphate and one of barium sulphate was used. The carbons are 4 millimeters (.16 ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... Coleridge were re-creating poetry; Scott was re-creating the novel; Lamb was re-creating the human document; and Hazlitt, Coleridge, Leigh Hunt, and others were re-creating criticism. Sparks are flying all about the place, and it will be not less than a miracle if something combustible and indestructible in you does ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... I called on the buffo in his workshop. His two combustible Turkish pavilions were finished, ready to be fired by Ettorina, and he was full of his devils. I inquired why we were doing Guido Santo so soon; it was only a year since my last visit to Palermo, when I had witnessed ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... 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. Such is not man, who, mixing better seed With worse, begets a base degenerate breed: The bad corrupts the good, and leaves behind No trace of all the great begetter's mind. The father sinks within his son, we see, And often rises ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... discovery of any further sign of the okapi. And then a difficulty arose in connection with the torches. There was nothing now available for these but such dry twigs and branches as they could gather from the ground, or the adjacent scrub, as they went; and while the small twigs were so exceedingly combustible that they were consumed in a minute or two, the larger ones refused to burn at all. And finally even the professor himself at length very reluctantly came to the conclusion that the okapi was irretrievably lost, and that to seek further for it would ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... chambers of the mine Are cramm'd with the combustible, which, harmless While yet unkindled, as the sable sand, Needs but a spark to change its nature so, That he who wakes it from its slumbrous mood, Dreads scarce the explosion less than he who knows That 'tis his towers which meet its ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... Margaret's deed, he was summoned into this danger. Her mother was one of those who throw out terrible possibilities, miserable probabilities, unfortunate chances of all kinds, as a rocket throws out sparks; but if the sparks light on some combustible matter, they smoulder first, and burst out into a frightful flame at last. Margaret was glad when, her filial duties gently and carefully performed, she could go down into the study. She wondered how her father and ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... I had come was indeed a novel sight. Its buildings average in height one-third of ours, although they occupy nearly as much ground space. They are composed almost totally of non-combustible materials. ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... machine to another, the thyroid may be compared to the accelerator of an automobile. That is a rough and superficial comparison because an accelerator lets in more of the fuel to be burned up, while the thyroid makes the fuel more combustible. It thus resembles more the primer, for a rich mixture of gasoline and air burns at a greater velocity than a poor one. But the action of thyroid could really be simulated only by some substance that could be introduced into the ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... lights, with which people amuse themselves, and then laughingly throw from the windows into the street. Collected together in the story below and on the ground floor, transported to shops, to warehouses and into business cabinets, they find combustible material, piles of wood a long time accumulated, and here do the flames enkindle. The conflagration seems to have already begun, for the chimneys roar and a ruddy light gleams through the windows; but "No," say the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... consented. The spring was not far advanced enough yet for Andrew to begin clearing any land even supposing that he had made a purchase; as it is always necessary that the leaves should be out, in order that this additional combustible may serve to burn the heaps ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... ordinary combustion there is a definite temperature, called the ignition or kindling temperature, to which combustible substance must be heated in order that it may unite with the gas in supporting the combustion. The burning substance must not only be heated up to the kindling temperature, but it must be kept as high as this temperature, or combustion ...
— The Traveling Engineers' Association - To Improve The Locomotive Engine Service of American Railroads • Anonymous
... of a bright, hard, glassy stem, the next thing is to develop a long, well-filled ear. To this end, available ammonia or nitrogen, phosphorus, potash, and magnesia are indispensable. Ammonia (spirits of hartshorn) is necessary to aid in forming the combustible part of the seed. The other ingredients named are required to assist in making the incombustible part of the grain. In 100 parts of the ash of wheat, there are ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... three travellers got into their car. The doctor lit the combustible in his cylinder and turned the flame so as to produce a rapid heat, and the balloon, which had rested on the ground in perfect equipoise, began to rise in a few minutes, so that the seamen had to slacken the ropes they ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... was of dry deal board, underneath; which suddenly conceiving flame, gave fire to the device of the masque, all of oiled paper, and dry fir, etc. And so, in a moment, disposed itself among the rest of that combustible matter that it was past any man's approach before it was almost discovered. Two hours begun and ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... of sensation comes over you, and just as you feel inclined to send for the cat's-meat man down the next court to come and fetch you away to the Dogs' Home, in bounces your landlady, and with two or three "Well, I nevers!" and "There's an imperent 'ussey, for you!" nearly bursts the patent non-combustible bootlace you lent her last night to hang the brass locket ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890 • Various
... an Aureole of Virtue seemed to curdle above him, while his Countenance bore an Expression of Placid Triumph, which meant that he was the real Asbestos Paragon who had been tried in the Furnace and declared Non-Combustible. ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... but where was I to get the punk from? I had also heard that fire had been made with lenses of glass, which, being held up to the sun, concentrate the rays and make a great heat, sufficient to set wood and like combustible things on fire; but I had no lens. Of course, I have no need to tell you that I had no matches, such as ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... certain combustibles which should throw out a great flame; the enemy would naturally conclude they were all fire-ships. The vessels were then to attach themselves to the frigate, fire broadsides double-shotted, throwing on board the enemy at the same time combustible balls which give a great smoke without flame. This would doubtless induce him to believe he was on fire, and give a most favourable opportunity for boarding him. However, the admiral returned my plan, saying only [Greek: ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... of the watch, which were in use not only as beacons, but as common street-lights, before either oil or gas-lights were known. Some of these cressets were formed of a wreathed rope, smeared over with pitch, and placed in an elevated cage of iron, others contained combustible materials in a hollow pan. Occasionally these primitive street-lights were placed at the summit of a pole, from either side of which, projecting pieces of wood formed a ready mode of ascent to trim the light, and obviated the need of a ladder ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton
... Revolution he speaks in no more flattering terms:—"Probably in America, as in other places, the chiefs are incendiaries, that hope to rob in the tumults of a conflagration, and toss brands among a rabble passively combustible." All these atrocities and follies amuse and interest us now; they are the coprolites of a literary megatherium, once hateful to gods and men, now inoffensive and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... sha'n't allow the bonfire no more—no, not at all; nor the fireworks neither—no, nothing of no kind of the sort." All this in his natural voice: then, swelling in dignity and in diction, "but, for the accumulated pile of combustibles, I say—for the combustible pile that you have accumulated, that you may not be deprived of the merit of doing a good action, the materials of which it is composed, that is to say, the logs of wood, and the bavins of furze, with the pole and tar-barrel, shall be sold, and the money put in the poor-box next Sunday, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... night, by reason that the caravan being to go from hence the next morning, we should be out of the governor's power. The better to effectuate my design, I procured a Tartar's sheep-skin robe, a bonnet, with bow and arrows, and every one of us got the like habits, the first night we spent in mixing combustible matter with aqua vitae, gunpowder, &c. having a good quantity of tar in a little pot: next night we came up to the idol about eleven o'clock, the moon being up. We found none guarding it; but we perceived a light in the house, where we had seen the ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... and several others slain. The Moslem camp was captured, but proved a doubtful prize. The plains were barren and scorching, and the harassing assaults of the Egyptians, who poured "Greek fire" (missiles filled with combustible materials) on their foes, rendered the situation more intolerable still. Pestilence broke out, and the king himself fell dangerously ill. He then ordered a retreat to Damietta, whither the sick were to be conveyed in galleys. These were intercepted, and the sick murdered by ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... all hours of the day and night. Seven corpses were brought in and placed upon the pyres, built up of unsawed cord wood in cob style, raised to the height of four feet, the fire being applied to a small handful of specially combustible material at the bottom. The whole was so prepared as to ignite rapidly, and in a very few moments after the torch was applied to it, the pile was wreathed in the devouring element. The atmosphere was impregnated with ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... his swift steps. The fire, evidently, was confined for the moment to one, or possibly two, of the small outbuildings. These were used largely for storage purposes; they were crammed full of packing cases, extra carboys of acids and loose heaps of bark—a raft of stuff that was highly combustible. A glance told Simon ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... frequently occur, in which the ebullition of party spirit is, although temporary, subsiding after the cause that produced it has passed away, and leaving the kind peasant to the natural, affectionate, and generous impulses of his character. But poor Paddy, unfortunately, is as combustible a material in politics or religion as in fighting—thinking it his duty to take the weak side*, without any other consideration than because it ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... greater number of reformers, do no more than prune a cankered tree, to whose root they dare not apply the axe; they do not perceive that this tree will in the end produce the same fruit. Theology, or superstition, will always be an heap of combustible matter: brooded in the imagination of mankind, it will always finish by causing the most terrible explosions. As long as the sacerdotal order shall have the privilege of infecting youth—of habituating their ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... citizens (it is the third and noisiest of all) penetrates that way into the outer court: soft speeches producing no clearance of these, De Launay gives fire; pulls up his drawbridge; a slight sputter—which has kindled the too combustible chaos; made it a roaring fire-chaos. Bursts forth insurrection at sight of its own blood, (for there were deaths by that sputter of fire,) into endless rolling explosion of musketry, distraction, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... me come eat with me. Royal sturgeon high sheriff, Coffey, the butcher, right to venisons of the forest from his ex. Send him back the half of a cow. Spread I saw down in the Master of the Rolls' kitchen area. Whitehatted chef like a rabbi. Combustible duck. Curly cabbage a la duchesse de Parme. Just as well to write it on the bill of fare so you can know what you've eaten. Too many drugs spoil the broth. I know it myself. Dosing it with Edwards' desiccated soup. Geese stuffed silly for them. Lobsters boiled alive. Do ptake ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... were opened, ventilating blowers were built, and refrigerating coils were set up everywhere, even in the tubular structure and behind the visiplates. After assuring themselves that everything combustible had been removed, the two scientists put on under their helmets, goggles whose protecting lenses could be built up to any desired thickness. Rovol then threw a switch, and a hemisphere of flaming golden radiance ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... he brought his ship into action, and laid her alongside L'Orient. One particular only I shall add to the known account of the memorable engagement between these ships, and this I received from Sir Alexander Ball himself. He had previously made a combustible preparation, but which, from the nature of the engagement to be expected, he had purposed to reserve for the last emergency. But just at the time when, from several symptoms, he had every reason to ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... towering sheet of flame, now shooting forward like an enormous dragon vomiting streams of fire upon its foes. All at once the flames changed colour, and were partially obscured by a thick black smoke. A large warehouse filled with resin, tar, and other combustible matters, had caught fire, and the dense vapour proceeded from the burning pitch. But it cleared off in a few minutes, and the flames burnt more ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... rigging were all enveloped in flame, a dense smoke was rising from the hold, indicating that the electric fluid, in its descent through the ship, had come in contact with something in the cargo that was highly combustible. Passengers and crew stood looking on with pale, horror-stricken faces. But the captain, a man of self-possession, aroused all from their lethargy by ordering, in a loud, clear voice, the masts and rigging to be cut away instantly. This order was obeyed. ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... to be staved in! The wild demons of the Commune are capable of everything; an invention of incendiary firemen is quoted as an example of the diabolical genius which presided over the work of destruction; individuals wearing the fireman's uniform were seen to throw combustible liquids by means of pumps and pails on the burning houses, instead of ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... driving green bamboo stakes into the earth, between which was first laid fire-wood, very dry and combustible; upon this was put a quantity of dry straw, or reeds, besmeared with grease: this was done alternately, till the pile was five feet in height; and the whole was then strewed with rosin, finely powdered. A white cotton sheet, which had been washed in the Ganges, was then ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... man owned a large rambling Mansion. The pillars were rotten, the galleries tumbling down, the thatch dry and combustible, and there was only one door. Suddenly, one day, there was a smell of fire: the old man rushed out. To his horror he saw that the thatch was aflame, the rotten pillars were catching fire one by one, and the rafters were burning like tinder. But, inside, ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... the first overthrow of the buildings, a new element of destruction came into play. The fires in the ruined houses kindled the timbers, and a mighty conflagration, urged by a violent wind, soon raged among the ruins, consuming everything combustible, and completing the wreck of the city. This fire, which lasted four days, was not altogether a misfortune. It consumed the thousands of corpses which would otherwise have tainted the air, adding pestilence to the other misfortunes of the survivors. Yet they were threatened ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... scarcity to give them value in exchange, are either movable, and exhaustible in a given place, or firmly connected with the land. The first category embraces, for instance, such wild animals and plants as serve some useful purpose, minerals, above all, fossil combustible matter(205)—the "black diamonds," coal, of which, with its canals, Franklin said that it had made England what it is. The economical effect of their moveable character is best seen, when the use ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... summer, and especially after the excessive dryness occasioned by the hot winds, the whole face of the country becomes, as it were, combustible, and bush-fires have at such times burst forth apparently spontaneously, and spread with great rapidity. The "Black Thursday" of the colony, some fifteen years since, when fire covered many hundreds of miles, ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... faster than they could master them; but the fire began to waken them fast enough, and our fellows were glad to keep a little together in bodies; for the fire grew so raging, all the houses being made of light combustible stuff, that they could hardly bear the street between them. Their business was to follow the fire, for the surer execution: as fast as the fire either forced the people out of those houses which were burning, or frightened them ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... destruction, and destined never more to visit Dalkeith again, except with a wooden stump and a brass virl, or to have his head blown off his shoulders, mast high, like ingan peelings, with some exploding earthquake of combustible gunpowder.—Call in the laddie, I say, and see what he ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... ones, it was because they were afraid of some few arquebuses with which those of the inside threatened them. But they endeavored to set fire to the convent and church three times without being able to succeed, notwithstanding that the material of the building was but little less combustible than tinder, for it was all constructed of wood, bamboo, and nipa. Those who tried to burn that edifice, regarded that as a miracle. Moreover, one can well understand the necessity that they suffered ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... from the Spontaneous Ignition of Coal; 2, Fires Caused by Burning Timber; 3, Fires Caused by Fire-damp Explosions.—II., Preventive Regulations: 1, The Outbreak and Rapid Extension of a Shaft Fire can be most reliably prevented by Employing little or no Combustible Material in the Construction of the Shaft; 2, Precautions for Rapidly Localising an Outbreak of Fire in the Shaft; 3, Precautions to be Adopted in case those under 1 and 2 Fail or Prove Inefficient ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech
... propagation OF FIRE! The word fire, thrown thus into the programme without any other explanation, gave rise to a mistake of the most singular kind. The majority of philosophers imagined that the question was to explain in what way burning communicates itself, and increases in a mass of combustible matter. Fifteen competitors presented themselves; three ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... startled hearers listened in silence; but soon the passions of that adventurous age rose responsive to his words. The combustible French nature burst into flame. The enthusiasm of the soldiers rose to such a pitch that Gourgues had much ado to make them wait till the moon was full before tempting the perils of the Bahama Channel. His time came at length. The moon rode high above the lonely ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... am still holding you. Are you me? What do you guess? Do you guess we were a couple of homesick ninnies, tired and weak and too combustible? Or do you guess it meant something about us finding each other out all in one second, like a flash of something? Do you guess we were frazzled up to the limit and not braced to hold back or anything, the way civilized people do? I mean, will we be the same back ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... rolled in from every direction. Their shouts and revels swelled upon the night air. The rain began to fall in torrents. They broke into the houses for shelter; insulted maids and matrons; tore down every thing combustible for their watch fires; massacred a few of the body-guard of the queen, and, with bacchanalian songs, roasted their horses for food. And thus passed the hours of this long and dreary night, in hideous outrages for which one can hardly find a parallel in ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... Town by escalade, we would not have been further advanced. The English, in half an hour afterwards, by burning it, by throwing down from the Upper Town upon the roofs of the houses fire pots, shells and other combustible matter, could have soon chased us out of it, or buried us under its ruins. This project, after having furnished for a long time matter for the daily conversations of Montrealers, was at last considered ...
— The Campaign of 1760 in Canada - A Narrative Attributed to Chevalier Johnstone • Chevalier Johnstone
... wish or other, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left—we find of a sudden that all our gay hopes are flown; and the only slender consolation that some friend can give us, is to point where they were once to be found. And lo! if we are not of that combustible race, who will rather beat their heads in spite, than wipe their brows with the curate, we look round and say, with the nauseated listlessness of the king of Israel, "All is vanity ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... to make it hot for him. A kind of "Kuklux" society was organized at Charleston, known as the "Hint Club." Its purpose was to hint to such people that they had better look out. If they did not mend their ways, it was unnecessary to inform them more explicitly what they might expect. Houses were combustible then as now, and the use of firearms was well understood. In Georgia the legislature itself attempted coercion. Paper money was made a legal tender in spite of strong opposition, and a law was passed prohibiting any planter or merchant from ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... Godfrey stood on his wooden tower, which was stationed near one of the gates, and by voice and action stimulated his soldiers to deeds of daring. His death-dealing javelin never missed its aim. The Egyptians employed every possible agent of defence,—showering down boiling oil, combustible materials, and various descriptions of missile, on the heads of their assailants. During the first day the Crusaders were repulsed at every point; but on the morrow fortune turned. The first half of the day was with ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... when thousands of barrels of petroleum had been stored up in vats, and when the combustible fluid was spouting from the wells at the rate of many hundred barrels per day. Before the present deep wells were bored, oil was not produced in sufficient quantities to cause such a conflagration, and there was never seen upon the creek a stratum of the fluid of such consistency ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... has been for some time hanging over the European world. If it should break forth into a storm, who can insure us that in its progress a part of its fury would not be spent upon us? No reasonable man would hastily pronounce that we are entirely out of its reach. Or if the combustible materials that now seem to be collecting should be dissipated without coming to maturity, or if a flame should be kindled without extending to us, what security can we have that our tranquillity will long remain undisturbed ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... made use of fire-balls, which they threw with their hands, designing to burn the doors of the castles. But the Spaniards from the walls let fall great quantities of stones, and earthen pots full of powder, and other combustible matter, which forced them to desist. Captain Morgan seeing this desperate defence made by the Spaniards, began to despair of success. Hereupon, many faint and calm meditations came into his mind; ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... a Filtre the Liquor descends and runs away by another part; and in the Week the Liquor is dispersed and carried away by the Flame; something there is ascribable to the Heat, for that it may rarifie the more volatil and spirituous parts of those combustible Liquors, and so being made lighter then the Air, it maybe protruded upwards by that more ponderous fluid body in the Form of Vapours; but this can be ascribed to the ascension of but a very little, and most ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... has a higher fuel ratio than lignite. The fuel ratio measures roughly the heat or calorific power of the coal, in other words, its fuel value. However, some bituminous coals have a higher calorific power than some anthracites, because a large part of their volatile matter is combustible and yields more heat than the corresponding weight of fixed carbon in the anthracite. The fuel ratio pretty well discriminates coals of the higher ranks, and gives a classification corresponding roughly with their commercial uses. ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... quickly lifted from the wire hooks as soon as they begin to look dangerous. Even the coffee-pot may be rigged with a wire handle by which to be hung. Wire and string are our special hobbies in camp. Fan a fire instead of blowing it. Your breath has lost most of its combustible gas. A tin or wooden plate makes a good fan. Put away dry kindling every night. You don't know what sort of weather it ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... not have been difficult to have blown such combustible materials into a flame; but Donald Cameron adopted a different policy, and endeavoured to allay the angry passions of the tribe over which he ruled: nevertheless, his own conduct was perfectly consistent with his principles; ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... great agency in establishing the present temperature of the earth. The substances which burn are but a small portion of the crust of the earth, and their combustion, if all fired at a time, would cause no perceptible effect on the sensible heat of the surface of our globe. Were combustible bodies even infinitely more abundant, the supporters are insufficient to keep up their combustion for any length of time, without sensible diminution, and this would be the case, even were the whole of the oxygen that now exists as a component of the waters of the ocean added to their ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... self-scrutiny. We are all familiar with the addled ego of literature—the writer whom constant self-communion has made vulgar, acid, querulous, and vain. And yet it is remarkable that of so many who meddle with the combustible passions of their own minds so few are blown up. The discipline of living is a fine ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... beasts, and torn by dogs; were crucified, and set on fire, that they might serve for lights in the night-time. Nero offered his gardens for this spectacle, and exhibited the games of the Circus by this dreadful illumination. Sometimes they were covered with wax and other combustible materials, after which a sharp stake was put under their chin, to make them stand upright, and they were burnt alive, to ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... filled it with combustibles of every kind. They loaded it first with light dry wood, and they poured pitch, and tar, and oil over all this wood to make it burn with fiercer flames. They saturated the sails and the cordage in the same manner, and laid trains of combustible materials through all parts of the vessel, so that when fire should be set in one part it would immediately spread every where, and set the whole mass in flames at once. They towed this ship, on a windy day, near to the enemy's works, and on the side from ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... consultation together, the English commanders determined to resort to stratagem. They sent for a number of useless hulks from Dover, and having filled them with every kind of combustible, sent them all aflame on Sunday night into the thick of the enemy. The result was a panic; cables were cut and frantic attempts made to escape what seemed imminent and wholesale destruction. The ships fell foul of each other; some were wrecked and others ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... more vigorously, and his enormous pouting lips came dimly into view. Another blow and his flat nose and fat cheeks emerged from darkness. Still another—with growing confidence—and his huge eyes were revealed glowing with hope. At last the handful of combustible burst into a flame, and was thrust into a prepared nest of twigs. This, communicating with a heap of logs, kindled a sudden blaze which scattered darkness out of being, and converted thirty yards of the primeval forest into a chamber of glorious light, round which the ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... Colonel Blood scarce had wit enough left to count the winnings of his wager. Young Lieutenant Blood stood up on his chair and bawled out some monstrous bad-writ verse to "a fair-dark lady"—whatever that meant—"who was as cold as ice and combustible as gunpowder." Healths were drunk to His Majesty King Charles, to His Royal Highness the Duke of York, to our councillors of the Company, to our governors of the fur-posts, and to the captains. ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... critics, whose pious forefathers kindled the fires of Smithfield, to assert that their practice was wholly barbarous. In the present case a pyre, some twelve feet high, was built at the foot of a huge granite boulder, near the sea-coast: it was constructed of dry wood, and was drenched with combustible materials. Jean was bound firmly to a strong hurdle, made of birch stems and withies securely lashed together. Judith, Garthmund, and the principal elders, placed themselves under the venerable oak; the people stood at a respectful distance. Twelve stalwart warriors bore the litter ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... evidently left behind as being of a type too heavy to drag with them on their hasty march to Morristown. Beside the cannon Molly also saw a lighted fuse slowly burning down at one end. She had a temptation as she looked at the piece of rope soaked in some combustible, lying there ready to achieve its purpose. She stooped over Dilwyn again, then she rose and went to the cannon, fuse in hand. In a half-second the booming of the great gun shook the battle-field—Molly had touched it off, and at exactly the right moment, for ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... an account of it to Le Genie Civil. The discovery was due entirely to scientific induction from some experiments made upon different specimens of dynamite, with a view to the determination of the effect on the explosive force of the various inert or at least slowly combustible substances with which nitro-glycerine is mixed to produce the dynamite of commerce. Of late, in place of the infusorial earth which formed the solid portion of Nobel's dynamite, such substances as sawdust, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various
... whether natural or violent, by conquerors' hands, whether through exposure to fire or to stress of weather, the upper part would be the first to suffer, but it would not disappear, from the nature of the material, which is not combustible. The crude bricks all through the enormous thickness of the walls, once thoroughly loosened, dislodged, dried up or soaked through, would lose their consistency and tumble down into the courts and halls, choking them up with the soft rubbish into which they crumbled, ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... which, on the pulling of a string, gave way, and plunged the victim into a depth of twenty feet. But the contriver was not satisfied with his attempt to break the bones of the unfortunate person whom he thus entrapped. He managed to have a small chamber filled with some combustible in the side of the pit, which was to be set on fire, and, on the return of the platform to its place, suffocate his detenu with smoke. Whether he had performed any previous atrocities in this way, or whether the present instance was the ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... of fuel." He paused while we listened intently, then resumed. "The gas-engine and gas- motor have brought with them another of those unanticipated menaces of which I spoke. Whenever the explosion of the combustible mixture is incomplete or of moderated intensity a gas of which little is known may be ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... observed at different extremities of the kingdom. The sound of an explosion was heard through Devon and Cornwall, and along the opposite coast of Bretagne. Halley conjectured this and similar displays to proceed from combustible vapors aggregated on the outskirts of the atmosphere, and suddenly set on fire by some unknown cause. But since his time, the fact has been established, of the actual fall of heavy bodies to the earth from surrounding ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... be within arrow shot before noon of the next day, Marion and Lee determined to adopt this speedy mode of effecting their object. Orders were instantly issued to prepare bows and arrows, with missive combustible matter. This measure was reluctantly adopted; for the destruction of private property was repugnant to the principles which swayed the two commandants, and upon this occasion was peculiarly distressing. The devoted house was a large, pleasant ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... evening at Upsal, in his chamber window, he saw a great fire in a dorf about half a league from the town, which he observed, almost in a moment, to flash from one end of the dorf to the other, consuming all in its way,—and thus it was said to have been in these suburbs. The reason thereof is the combustible matter whereof their houses are built, being of fir timber and boards, which, especially being old, do suddenly take fire, and violently burn, hard to be quenched, few houses escaping, especially in the dorfs, where one is on fire; which causeth more than ordinary care in the inhabitants ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... and her bonnet looking like an over-ripe fig, with a terrible cold that made her voice only a whisper, and sneezing herself almost to pieces, Mrs. Sparsit found Bounderby at his city hotel, exploded with the combustible information she carried and fainted quite ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... was not plain and ordinary, and the smiles which were intended as innocent lures from snares, instead of into them, might make trouble for all concerned. Haldane was naturally combustible, to begin with, and was now at the most inflammable period of ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... published by him at Edinburgh a great many years ago, where he mentions 'these impure tales, which will be the eternal opprobium of their ingenious author'. JOHNSON: 'Sir, Lord Hales has forgot. There is nothing in Prior that will excite to lewdness. If Lord Hales thinks there is, he must be more combustible than other people.' I instanced the tale of Paulo Purganti and his Wife. JOHNSON: 'Sir, there is nothing there but that his wife wanted to be kissed, when poor Paulo was out of pocket. No, sir, Prior is a lady's book. No lady is ashamed to have it standing in her library.' "—BOSWELL'S ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... everywhere green with the curling fronds; and where I do not cut, the foresters and miners will be preparing heaps to carry away for litter and bedding. By the end of July the forest beneath the oaks will be covered with a carpet of stuff as combustible as tinder. Let us but fire it at Newnham, Littledean, Blakeney, Coleford, and at Speech by the courthouse, and we shall lay tens of thousands of oaks in blackened ruin. Philip of Spain has but to scatter the present small navy of England, for no more ships can ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... purely feminine ruse to apply a test to love—both her own and that of her lover—to prove it true. A man would as soon as think of applying a match to a powder magazine to prove it combustible. ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... pleasure. Perhaps there may be such: but, if there are, those hearts may be compared, I believe, to damps, in which it is more difficult to keep fire alive than to prevent its blazing: in mine it was placed in the midst of combustible matter. ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... built so as to constitute a fire wall wherever it is practicable to do so. Such walls should project at least three feet above the roof, and should be capped by stone, terra cotta, or sheet metal. They must form a complete cut-off of all combustible material, especially at ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various
... That felt unusual weight; till on dry land He lights—if it were land that ever burned With solid, as the lake with liquid fire, And such appeared in hue as when the force Of subterranean wind transports a hill Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side Of thundering Etna, whose combustible And fuelled entrails, thence conceiving fire, Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds, And leave a singed bottom all involved With stench and smoke. Such resting found the sole Of unblest feet. Him followed his next mate; Both glorying to have scaped the Stygian flood ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... to statehood. General Riley, military governor, at once called a convention, which, sitting from September 1st to October 13th, framed a constitution and made request that California be taken into the Union. This constitution prohibited slavery, and thus a new firebrand was tossed into the combustible material with which the political situation abounded. By this time nearly all the friends of freedom were for the proviso, but its enemies as well had greatly increased. The immense growth, actual and prospective, of northern population, greatly inspired one ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... rows of pots of burning coal-tar, or of naphtha, along the north side of the vineyard, and thus keeping up a cloud of smoke for two or three hours before and after sunrise. The expense is said to be small, and probably it might be reduced by mixing some less combustible substance, as earth, with the fluid, and thus checking its too ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... the town, took up a position upon a hill opposite to the citadel, and there he had engines constructed to throw enormous arrows, on which tow that had been dipped in pitch was wound. This combustible envelopment of the arrows was set on fire before the weapon was discharged, and a shower of the burning missiles thus formed was directed toward the palisade. The wooden walls were soon set on fire by them, ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
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