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More "Detonation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... they looked, the strange craft quivered, tottered, and fell over on its side, and the next instant was enveloped in a blinding sheet of flame that brought with it a dull detonation and a ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... Tartars of the North, were ignorant of the use of gunpowder, and toward the end of the sixteenth century they still used the arms employed in the time of Genghis. Each one of Iermak's warriors faced a crowd of the enemy. If his bullet only killed one of them, the frightful detonation of his gun put to flight twenty or thirty. In the first combat, held on the bank of the Tobol, at a place called Babassan, Iermak, under shelter of intrenchments, checked by some discharges of musketry the impetuosity of ten thousand men of Mahmetkul's cavalry, who rushed forward ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... flash split up the sky as a stone splits a window pane. Pulsating streaks of fire, red, green, and blue, radiated in all directions, half-blinding them with the brazen glare. And before it faded, a crackling detonation seemed to rip the very ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... ye have th' belly-ache!" cried this tall man, and, without more warning, there was a tremendous flash and detonation, a mighty flying of the clear waters just under the bows of the foremost canoes ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... patch, he added the last trace of pressure. He saw a train of sparks leap from the jerking muzzle, and felt the butt jar upon his shoulder. Still, as is almost invariably the case with a man whose whole force of will is concentrated on holding the little sight on a living mark, he heard no detonation. He recognized, however, the unmistakable thud of the bullet smashing through soft flesh, and that was what he ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... himself as to the choice of his victim; and the soldier, who was bold enough to undertake this double murder, has not force nor courage to consummate it. He flies, carrying in his hand a useless whip, with a heavy mantle on his shoulders, in spite of the detonation of two pistols at his ears, and the rapid steps of an angry master in pursuit, which ought to have set him upon some better means of escape. And we find this man, full of youth and vigor, lying with his face to the ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... adheres but very slightly, and the smallest additional force is capable of setting it free; and, when such force is applied, it often recovers the state of gas instantaneously. This rapid passage from the solid to the aeriform state is called detonation, or fulmination, because it is usually accompanied with noise and explosion. Deflagrations are commonly produced by means of combinations of charcoal either with nitre or oxygenated muriat of potash; sometimes, to assist the inflammation, sulphur is added; and, upon the just proportion ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... outrage; coup de main; strain, shock, shog^; spasm, convulsion, throe; hysterics, passion &c (state of excitability) 825. outbreak, outburst; debacle; burst, bounce, dissilience^, discharge, volley, explosion, blow up, blast, detonation, rush, eruption, displosion^, torrent. turmoil &c (disorder) 59; ferment &c (agitation) 315; storm, tempest, rough weather; squall &c (wind) 349; earthquake, volcano, thunderstorm. berserk, berserker; fury, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... upon the ice. The two men were almost lifted from their feet. Not far away they heard the tumultuous crash of the rising waves. As they were lashing the blubber to Ootah's sledge, a resounding detonation vibrated through the ice under him—the field on which they stood slowly ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... any other time during the war. The howitzer battery was placed directly in front of the position, and poured forth a terrible fire over the whole face of the hill. Lyddite shells sped snorting into the trenches, and, with a terrific detonation, shot up the earth in clouds. One destroyed a laager on the kopje, others did fearful execution, striking the hard rocks and boulders, and spreading devastation far and wide. But still the enemy failed to budge from their strong entrenchments. The 62nd and 18th Field Batteries, under ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... Detachment (milit.) tacxmento. Detail detalo. Details (minutes) detaleto. Detain malhelpi, deteni. Detect eltrovi. Deter malhelpi. Deteriorate difekti. Determine decidi. Determination decideco. Determined decida. Detest malami. Dethrone detroni. Detonation eksplodbruo. Detract kalumnii. Detriment malprofito, perdo. Detrimental malhelpa. Devastate dezertigi, ruinigi. Develope vastigi. Development vastigo. Deviate malrektigxi. Deviation malrektigxo. Device devizo. Devil diablo. Devine diveni. Devious malrekta. Devise (invent) ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... were still unharmed. But it was going hard with them. In fact, a fierce blow on his blade from a bludgeon shivered the weapon of the Frenchman. A sword was aimed at his heart. There was a blinding flash, a detonation, and the man who held it staggered back. The Countess, the last pistol almost touching the man's body, had pulled the trigger. Marteau seized the sword of the man who had menaced him. The next instant the chateau was shaken by a terrific roar. The Russians outside having constructed ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... This was the detonation which had so startled Jerry and Bob, and now, with others, they looked over the top of the trench at the ruins of the truck. It was blown apart, and the wooden body and wheels were scattered about while the engine was a mere mass of twisted and ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... flash and detonation frightened them; whether Perdosa, still clinging to his rock, managed to turn their attention by his flanking efforts, or whether, quite simply, the wall of dead finally turned them back, I do not know, but with one accord ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... is that of having toys—such as imitation musical instruments, crackers which make an unpleasant detonation, imitations of negro minstrels, balloons, flags, and pasteboard lobsters, toads, and insects—presented to each lady. These articles are neither tasteful nor amusing, and have "no excuse for being" except that they afford an opportunity ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... any serious damage. As a mere pyrotechnic spectacle it was certainly a grand sight to watch the graceful curves of the live shells through the air—a parabola of vivid brightness against the black sky, as the burning fuse, fanned by its rapid motion, glowed like a shooting- star. The loud detonation, and explosion of fiery fragments that followed, however, was rather discomposing to the nerves, and unfavourable for restful slumber ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... by the side of the hearth where a few pieces of green wood smoked without burning, they started at each of the distant reports of the cannon. At each detonation that shook the window-panes, Mme. Favoral thought that it was, perhaps, the one that had ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... down the rope. The explosion had certainly done enough damage, and if the ice "cradle" beneath the vessel's keel had not been so thick she must have been sunk with the shock of the detonation. The ice "blanket" that covered her though had been shattered like a pane of glass—and, with picks thrown down onto the decks from above the boys soon cleared a path to the door of a ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... with the bayonet. As they saw the Pontificals swerve back they uttered cries of joy. It was two o'clock. The enemy's fire slackened; something was going on which the volunteers could not make out. All at once there was a sharp unfamiliar detonation, resembling the whirring sound of a machine. The French had ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... struck by the difference among them in regard to energy of explosion, and discovered that if a portion of free carbon, sufficient to combine with the oxygen disengaged from the nitro-glycerine, was present at the moment of detonation, the effect was greater than where, as in the case of gunpowder, the solid portion alone furnished oxygen enough to burn all the free carbon, without calling upon the nitro-glycerine for any. In fact, it appeared from experiment that ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various
... thunder was uninterrupted. Now and then a vivid zig-zag flash gored the intense darkness with its baleful blue death-light, followed by a crash, appalling as if the battlements of heaven had been shattered. Once the whole air seemed ablaze, and the simultaneous shock of the detonation was so violent, that Beryl involuntarily sank on her knees, and hid her eyes on a chair. The rain fell in torrents, that added a solemn sullen swell to the diapason of the thunder fugue, and by degrees a delicious coolness crept into ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... mile with a beam whose cross section is not more than twenty or twenty-five feet in diameter. Our gunners, completely concealed beneath the foliage of the forest, with weapons which did not reveal their position, as did the flashes and detonation of the Twentieth Century artillery, hit their repeller rays ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... Absolutely impossible, I tell you! What you are inventing now is impossible!... You forget that a shot from a gun, a shot from so powerful a weapon, makes a noise. Why, deuce take it, the detonation must be heard!" ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... about what the new comers were was solved before we reached the river, for we could hear the rapid detonation of the stock-whips loud above the lowing of the cattle; so we sat and watched them debouche from the forest into the broad river meadows in the gathering gloom: saw the scene so venerable and ancient, so seldom seen in the Old World—the patriarchs moving into the desert ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... bare feet pattering on the parquet of the hall that restored his senses and as the door of the room flew open he stamped on the still burning electric bulb lying at his feet. The detonation as it flew into fragments came simultaneously with the sharp, stinging report of a small calibre pistol. The room was plunged into utter darkness in which could be heard the sound of two men breathing and the zinging of the mantelpiece brasses from ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... as the bullets hissed over his head. The battle had begun! Another hour and the Mormon kingdom would be at the mercy of the avenging host from the mainland—and Marion would be his own for ever! He heard again the deep rumble of a heavy gun and from its sullen detonation he knew that it was fired from a ship at sea. A nearer crash of returning fire turned him into a deserted street down which he ran wildly, on past the last houses of the town, until he came to the foot of a hill up which he climbed more ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... that a loud explosion took place when the meteorite fell at Ensisheim. In this we have a characteristic feature of the phenomenon. Nearly all the descents of meteorites that have been observed seem to have been ushered in by a detonation. We do not, however, assert that this is quite an invariable feature; and it is also the case that meteors often detonate without throwing down any solid fragments that have been collected. The violence associated with the phenomenon is forcibly ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... word seemed to have the explosive force of nitroglycerine. Its detonation rang through the room and left them all silent, as though their ears were stunned and their tongues paralyzed. Alec was the first to see that some event far out of the common had reduced his cousin, Count Julius Marulitch, almost ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... and walls with cement on metal lath, and otherwise protecting the openings. In it are installed apparatus for determining calorific value of explosives, pressure produced on ignition, susceptibility to ignition when dropped, rate of detonation, length and duration of flame, and kindred factors. Elsewhere on the grounds is a gallery of boiler-steel plate, 100 ft. long and more than 6 ft. in diameter, solidly attached to a mass of concrete at one end, in which is embedded a cannon from which to discharge the explosive ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Herbert M. Wilson
... the morning, in the midst of this hilarious scramble to be off to the floe, there was a flash and spit of fire, and the clap of an explosion, and the clatter of a sealing-gun on the bare floor; and in the breathless, dead little interval between the appalling detonation and a man's groan of dismay followed by a woman's choke and scream of terror, Dolly West, Bad-Weather Tom's small maid, stood swaying, wreathed in gray smoke, her little hands ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... a periscope depth, and I surveyed her from a position off her stern. She was sinking fast, but I felt so furious at being nearly trapped that I could not resist giving her a torpedo; detonation was complete, and a mass of wreckage shot into the air as the hull of the ship disappeared. As to the two boats, I left them to make the best course to land that ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... of fire. The fatal touch is given. The detonation of the blast goes shrieking up to heaven. The mansions of bonanza kings are tottering to their doom; That swirling tide of fiery fate halts at the gaping tomb. Beyond the cataclysm's brink, the multitude, too dazed to think, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... as it was, had escaped detonation in the blast. He had only to stagger across the twenty yards separating him from it, then release the stud that would send ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... the emerging men; he hurled another. A leap of blue flame, which flared high and blinding, followed its detonation. He hurled at the other causeway, first halting by a bomb the out rush of men; and thus he marked the mouth of this second causeway the next instant by a sheet ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... 22, 1831, a violent detonation was suddenly heard in the coal mine of Bois-Monzil, belonging to M. Robinot. The waters from the old works rushed impetuously along the new galleries. "The waters, the waters!" such was the cry that resounded from the affrighted workmen throughout the mine. Only ten miners out of twenty-six were ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... in the comparative calm under the tree, drifting closer to him, started to obey. But it suddenly approached his face, and seized with a reckless terror, he snatched off his hat and batted at it as one would at a pestilent bee. Instantly there was a blinding glare, a stunning detonation, and a violent air-wave which threw me clear off my feet and to the ground. I sat up blindly with my vision full of opalescent lights and my ears ringing, unable ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby
... this time the cannon were thundering—so close that it seemed each hilltop would bring them into view, and as the detonation puffed across the landscape, one even fancied one could feel the concussion in one's ear. Up from a field ahead of us an aeroplane rose and, in a wide spiral, went climbing up the sky, now almost cleared, ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... the Nordenfeldt shields with the bullets pattering against the steel and stinging the air overhead? He or his ghost, barefoot in the sand that sopped the blood of fallen comrades, the ship shaking with the detonation of her guns, the hoarse cheering of her crew re-echoing in his half- deafened ears? A dream, yes; tragic and wonderful in the retrospect, filled with wild, ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... float for hours—in the open sea—and be picked up not much the worse for it. I might have lasted it out better than many others. There's nothing the matter with my heart." He withdrew his right fist from his pocket, and the blow he struck on his chest resounded like a muffled detonation in ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... downward plunging he had reached the river bank. The tranquil silver surface quivered and glittered before him. He saw what he knew he would see, the black target of a man's head above it, making for the Bar. He took deliberate aim and fired. There was no echo to that sharp detonation; a distant dog barked, there was a slight whisper in the trees beside him, that was all! But the head of the man was no longer visible, and the liquid silver filmed over again, without a ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... way. This is the bombardier-beetle, common in certain other countries, but also found in England, which if chased will discharge from its stern a puff of bluish-white smoke, accompanied by a slight detonation. It can fire many shots from its stern chasers. It is said that a highly volatile liquid is secreted by glands, which when it meets the air passes into vapour so suddenly as to produce ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... was racing back again, running as madly as if a troop of demons was after him. A flash cleft the darkness; a deep detonation thundered and echoed against the hills; the building against which Hetty leaned shook as if an earthquake had seized it, and Thursday Smith was thrown flat on his face and rolled almost to the terrified girl's feet, where he lay motionless. Only ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... melts. Therefore, when this same wind a-fire Hath split black cloud, it scatters the fire-seeds, Which, so to say, have been pressed out by force Of sudden from the cloud;—and these do make The pulsing flashes of flame; thence followeth The detonation which attacks our ears More tardily than aught which comes along Unto the sight of eyeballs. This takes place— As know thou mayst—at times when clouds are dense And one upon the other piled aloft With wonderful upheavings—nor be thou Deceived because we see how broad ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... knowledge of explosives, and I know of nothing that would produce such results as we have here. Perhaps Professor Carl Seigfried could give you some information on that point. The science of detonation has been his life study, and he stands head and shoulders above his ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... descending perpendicularly, with a steady force; and the thunder rolled far off, as if coming from under the sea. Sometimes the muffled rumbling stopped, and let us hear plainly the gentle hiss and the patter of the drops falling upon a vast expanse. Suddenly, mingled with a loud detonation right over our heads, a burst of light outlined under the bellying strip of our sail the pointed crown of Castro's hat, reposing on a heap of black clothing huddled in the bows. The darkness swallowed it all. I swung Seraphina in front of ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... fright the savages from their propriety. Beaujeu and a dozen more fell dead upon the spot, and the Indians already began to fly, their courage being unable to endure the unwonted tumult of such a portentous detonation. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... hands in the pockets of his sheepskin coat and his shoulders hunched up to his ears under the falling snow. On being overtaken this peasant suddenly faced about and swung his arm. In an instant there was a terrible shock, a detonation muffled in the multitude of snowflakes; both horses lay dead and mangled on the ground and the coachman, with a shrill cry, had fallen off the box mortally wounded. The footman (who survived) had no ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... our eyes at the willows. After an interval a long stab of light pierced the dusk and the round detonation of old-fashioned black powder shook the silence. There came to us the babbling of voices released. At the same instant the newly risen moon plastered us against that whitewashed wall like insects pinned in a ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... The detonation was answered by a cry, a scream of pain, from the lighted cage. It paused on the instant, like a bird stricken a-wing, some four floors below, but at ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... Dick, Dave and Tom, their ears rang with the noise until they felt as though surely their ear-drums had been ruptured by the force of that awesome detonation. ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock
... crest where I stood, the whole landscape about me was illuminated with the fierce glare of the bursting shells, while the ground on which I stood quivered with the thunderous detonation of the artillery. ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... Marne begin,— and the line they were observing was the Iles-les-Villenoy, in the river right at the west of us. When I first saw the exercises, there were half a dozen lovely red and green lights hanging motionless in the sky. I could hear the heavy detonation of the cannon or gun, or whatever they use to throw them, and then see the long arc of light like a chain of gold, which marked the course of the fusee, until it burst into color at the end. I wrapped myself up, took my field-glasses, and stayed out an hour watching the ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... This we invested in flour, tea, strong boots, and other indispensables. We possessed an old gun a double-barreled fowling-piece that had once been a flint-lock. The spring driving one hammer was too weak to discharge a percussion cap, that of the other was just strong enough to cause detonation on an average twice out of three attempts. We could get no bullet mould the gun being of an unusual caliber so we used to chop off chunks of lead and roll them between flat stones until the requisite degrees of size ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... dull, brutish detonation. The swimmer, swung high on the bosom of a great swell, saw a vast sheet of fire ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... nothing but the explosion of the bomb at the Centralia station could have betrayed the plot. It is true that the distant mountains had sent the echoes of the detonation far and wide, but a single shot didn't have much significance at a time like this when our country resounded with the thunder of cannon day in ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... attributed to flashes below the horizon whose light only is seen by us. Globe or ball lightning takes the form of globes of fire, sometimes visible for ten seconds, descending from the clouds. On reaching the earth they sometimes rebound, and sometimes explode with a loud detonation. No adequate explanation ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... of the thunder was uninterrupted. Now and then a vivid zig-zag flash gored the intense darkness with its baleful blue death-light, followed by a crash, appalling as if the battlements of heaven had been shattered. Once the whole air seemed ablaze, and the simultaneous shock of the detonation was so violent, that Beryl involuntarily sank on her knees, and hid her eyes on a chair. The rain fell in torrents, that added a solemn sullen swell to the diapason of the thunder fugue, and by degrees a delicious coolness crept into ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... rusty rails. To the left a clump of trees made a shady spot, where dark things seemed to stir feebly. I blinked, the path was steep. A horn tooted to the right, and I saw the black people run. A heavy and dull detonation shook the ground, a puff of smoke came out of the cliff, and that was all. No change appeared on the face of the rock. They were building a railway. The cliff was not in the way or anything; but this objectless blasting was ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... idea—that of getting near one another. They called out, "Bell!" "Simpson!" "This way, doctor!" "Where are you, captain?" But no answers were heard; the vapour did not conduct sound. They all fired as a sign of rallying. But if the sound of the voice appeared too weak, the detonation of the firearms was too strong, for it was echoed in all directions, and produced a confused rumble without appreciable direction. Each acted then according to his instincts. Hatteras stopped, folded his arms, ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... down, nose first. Those in the starboard boats saw her stand on end for full five minutes, screws spinning, before a muffled detonation blew the bowels out of her and sucked her down ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... and Tom, their ears rang with the noise until they felt as though surely their ear-drums had been ruptured by the force of that awesome detonation. ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock
... would burst out laughing. A big voice, a good fellow. He had a comic foundation under a tragic exterior, he asked nothing better than to frighten you, very much like those snuff-boxes which are in the shape of a pistol. The detonation makes one sneeze. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... broken by a sudden detonation which came out of the pale gloom ahead of them. It was like the explosion of a cannon a ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... one torpedo was fired at the Lusitania, which hit her starboard side below the captain's bridge. The detonation of the torpedo was followed immediately by a further explosion of extremely strong effect. The ship quickly listed to starboard and began ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... steel-bound door for the coming detonation. The sound of it smote him like a blow on the chest, followed by a rush of air and a ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... explosion is about 25 yds., but the local effect is intense, and hence on light structures in a confined space the destruction is complete. The shell is only of use against thin plates; against modern armour it is ineffective. When detonation has not been complete, as sometimes happens with small shells, the smoke is yellowish and the pieces of the exploded shell are as large as when a ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... once more attempted to land. But two natives whom they had previously endeavoured to propitiate by throwing them nails, glassware, and other trifles, made such menacing demonstrations, that they were obliged to fire over their heads. At first they seemed stunned by the detonation, but as they found that they were not wounded, they commenced hostilities by throwing stones and javelins. A volley of bullets struck the oldest in his legs. The unfortunate native rushed at once to one of the cabins, but returned with a shield ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... not disputed their passage; it maintained the silence and the immobility of marble; nothing but the snarl of the surging flood re-echoed from its face. But with the suddenness of a rifle-shot there came a detonation, louder, sharper than any blast of powder. The Norwegian cursed; the helmsman dropped his eyes to the white face ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... bespatter our tents and dugouts with lumps of earth. One of the men of the 88th Field Ambulance, just in front of us, got wounded. They began again with heavier shells—Jack Johnsons—about 5 a.m. to-day, seven falling near us, and as we lay underground we could feel the earth shake with every detonation. Last night was the first time they ever gave us such a visit. They are chary of using their big guns after dark in case they ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... lay back and roared with laughter over his great triumph. C. and R! Poof! He would send Stolz' nephew to prison, and then roll a bomb along Wall Street whose detonation would startle the financial world clean out of its orbit! Stolz had failed to notice that Ames's schemes had so signally worked out that C. and R. was practically in his hands now! The defeated railroad magnate at length backed out of the Ames office purple ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... bullets hissed over his head. The battle had begun! Another hour and the Mormon kingdom would be at the mercy of the avenging host from the mainland—and Marion would be his own for ever! He heard again the deep rumble of a heavy gun and from its sullen detonation he knew that it was fired from a ship at sea. A nearer crash of returning fire turned him into a deserted street down which he ran wildly, on past the last houses of the town, until he came to the foot of a hill up which he climbed more slowly, ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... understand that he is expected now to do his duty.' In he went again, and planted another candle about a yard in front of the last one. Then he stopped and fired a shot from the revolver that we carried in turn for the otters, and the sound of the detonation seemed to echo in a muffled fashion from the ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... the strange craft quivered, tottered, and fell over on its side, and the next instant was enveloped in a blinding sheet of flame that brought with it a dull detonation and a ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... therefore no man's property. He knew he wanted fresh meat, to say nothing of cowhide for moccasins and thongs. Up went his big smooth-bore muzzle-loader. There was a deafening, clattering report, unlike the smart detonation of a rifle. The little red cow fell on her knees, with a cough and a wild clamour of the bell, then rolled over in the shallow, shimmering water. With a whoop of exultation, the Indian thrust ashore; and, as he did so, the black yearling, taught terror at last by the report and by the human ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... and nitrate of soda with greater rapidity than before, by slightly elevating the spout, the effect was to blow up the pot on the top into the air to a height of upwards of seventy feet, accompanied by a loud detonation. With this the coroner and jury became convinced that whether or not the premises in Hillgate contained gunpowder, they contained elements as certainly explosive, and perhaps ...
— Fires and Firemen • Anon.
... lioness, with a frightful howl of agony, rolled down the steps, overturning Joe in her fall. The poor fellow imagined that he could already feel the enormous paws of the savage beast in his flesh, when a second detonation resounded in the narrow passage, and Dr. Ferguson appeared at the opening above with his gun in hand, and still smoking ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... with the utmost coolness, a coolness which in the circumstances was nothing less than heroism, uncoupled his engine, and leaving the trucks to their fate, steamed back to the town. Before he could reach his destination, however, the shock of an awful detonation greeted his ears. The Boers had again fired on the trucks, believing them to be full of passengers, and, as a natural ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... impossible, I tell you! What you are inventing now is impossible!... You forget that a shot from a gun, a shot from so powerful a weapon, makes a noise. Why, deuce take it, the detonation must be heard!" ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... detonation was merging into the uproar. It came from the ships, Thurston knew, where anti-aircraft guns poured a rain of shells into the sky. About the invaders they bloomed into clusters of smoke balls. The globes shot a thousand feet into the air. Again the shells found ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... screaming towards us. It hurtled overhead and fell behind us with muffled detonation in Sailly-au-Bois. Several more screamed over us as we went along, and it was peculiar to hear the shells of both sides echoing backwards and forwards in the sky at ...
— Attack - An Infantry Subaltern's Impression of July 1st, 1916 • Edward G. D. Liveing
... bulkheads. At the same instant arose a screaming of women's voices, and one voice, that of Sir John Malyoe, crying out as in the greatest extremity: "You villains! You damned villains!" and with that the sudden detonation of a pistol fired into the close space of the ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... accompanied the descent of the Rowton siderite, and it is on record that a loud explosion took place when the meteorite fell at Ensisheim. In this we have a characteristic feature of the phenomenon. Nearly all the descents of meteorites that have been observed seem to have been ushered in by a detonation. We do not, however, assert that this is quite an invariable feature; and it is also the case that meteors often detonate without throwing down any solid fragments that have been collected. The violence associated with the ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... aide-de-camp's horse outside the cottage could be heard. Then, like the grating of a coffee mill in a distant kitchen when one is just waking out of a sound sleep, they heard the faint, smothered whir of machinery, a sharper metallic ring of steel against steel followed by a gigantic detonation which shook the ground upon which the cottage stood and overthrew every glass upon the table. With a roar like the fall of a skyscraper the first shell hurled itself into the night. Half terrified the officers gripped their ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... sky is alive with thunderclaps. Each detonation reveals together a shaft of red falling fire in what is left of the night, and a column of smoke in what has dawned of the day. Up there—so high and so far that they are heard unseen—a flight of dreadful birds goes circling up with strong and ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... dependent on the direction of the wind. In gas projectiles such as shells, hand grenades, and trench mortar bombs, a part or the whole of the explosive charge is replaced by a liquid which is converted into gas by the explosion. The explosive force and noise of detonation of these projectiles is less than that of the ordinary kind, and a large number of them are usually discharged into a comparatively small space. After the explosion, the irritant chemicals form a small gas cloud, though some may sink to the ground and remain active ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... and distorted whirl burst upward in a huge geyser of annihilation, came a detonation that ripped, stunned, shattered; that sent both the defenders staggering backward ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... about the third week in February that a Conference war was declared in Philadelphia, Buffalo, and Baltimore. In the ears of Mr. Gunterson the triple detonation rang terribly, like the very voice of doom, and it was with the desperation of hopelessness that he addressed himself to the solution of this ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... A leaden ball, hurtling through length of space, Even melts. Therefore, when this same wind a-fire Hath split black cloud, it scatters the fire-seeds, Which, so to say, have been pressed out by force Of sudden from the cloud;—and these do make The pulsing flashes of flame; thence followeth The detonation which attacks our ears More tardily than aught which comes along Unto the sight of eyeballs. This takes place— As know thou mayst—at times when clouds are dense And one upon the other piled aloft With wonderful ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... copper cap upon a strip of fuse, and, lighting the latter, retired expeditiously towards the river. Standing behind a big cedar, he watched the train of blue vapour and thin red sparks creep on through the dusk until a blaze of yellow flame leapt up, and a stunning detonation rolled across the woods. The hillsides took up the sound, and flung it from one to another in great reverberations, while the pines, quivering in all their sprays, shook drops of water down. Alton stood still and listened, silent and intent, ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... with Planchet into the boat, and five minutes after they were on board. It was time; for they had scarcely sailed half a league, when d'Artagnan saw a flash and heard a detonation. It was the cannon which announced the ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a fresh detonation, "You dare—and you think I'm going to ask you whom I shall fall in love with? Fish? What do you call those other shrimps who don't think of anything but drinking and sport, whether they attend to business or not?—their fathers make them, anyhow. And you ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... cannon were thundering—so close that it seemed each hilltop would bring them into view, and as the detonation puffed across the landscape, one even fancied one could feel the concussion in one's ear. Up from a field ahead of us an aeroplane rose and, in a wide spiral, went climbing up the sky, now almost cleared, and presently disappeared in the north. Then, after satisfying a sentry that our papers ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... to you he does occasionally, he errs through perverseness, not through unwariness. His language often settles into clear and most beautiful prose, often takes an imperfect and incoherent shape of poetry, and often, cloud against cloud, bursts with a vehement detonation in the air. Diogenes was hated both by the vulgar and the philosophers. By the philosophers, because he exposed their ignorance, ridiculed their jealousies, and rebuked their pride: by the vulgar, because they never can endure a man apparently of their own class who avoids ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... all the great double petards of the Saint-Jean, the discharge of twenty arquebuses on supports, the detonation of that famous serpentine of the Tower of Billy, which, during the siege of Paris, on Sunday, the twenty-sixth of September, 1465, killed seven Burgundians at one blow, the explosion of all the powder stored at the gate of the Temple, would have rent his ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... that of having toys—such as imitation musical instruments, crackers which make an unpleasant detonation, imitations of negro minstrels, balloons, flags, and pasteboard lobsters, toads, and insects—presented to each lady. These articles are neither tasteful nor amusing, and have "no excuse for being" except that they afford an opportunity for ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... to a stop. The building in which the show was being held shook as though a violent thunderclap had rocked the earth. This loud detonation that broke upon their hearing, however, was only too familiar to all those army aviators. They understood ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... deafening roar, and red-hot rocks, like the balls from nature's mighty artillery, were hurled a half mile into the air, while a dense mass of ashes and sand was flung to three or four times this height. All the next day the terrible detonation kept up, and a hail of bullet-like stones poured downward from the skies. Rarely has a more terrible Sunday been seen. It was as if the demons of earth and air were let loose and were seeking to destroy man and ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... past that door? Really, the deathlike stillness on the other side was more mysterious than would have been the detonation of some ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... lightly played with by babes and sucklings. The sand-box tree of the West Indies has large round fruits, containing seeds about as big as an English horsebean; and the capsule explodes, when ripe, with a detonation like a pistol, scattering its contents with as much violence as a shot from an air-gun. It is dangerous to go too near these natural batteries during the shooting season. A blow in the eye from one would blind a man instantly. I well remember the very first night I spent in ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... permit himself also to be examined, when there was heard from below the detonation of one of the Kaiser's big mortars; and pulling away from the Doctor, he called an excited ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... beginning to break when a terrible detonation shook all Dorfield. Houses rocked, windows rattled, a sudden wind swept over the town and then a glare that was not a presage of the coming sun lit ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... fire. The fatal touch is given. The detonation of the blast goes shrieking up to heaven. The mansions of bonanza kings are tottering to their doom; That swirling tide of fiery fate halts at the gaping tomb. Beyond the cataclysm's brink, the multitude, too dazed to think, Behold ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... appeared from somewhere inland, followed at a few seconds' interval by a heavy detonation, exactly like the ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... all danger: they should continue to be the property of the parents, and should be produced only when they are wanted. No great apparatus is necessary for showing children the first simple operations in chemistry: such as evaporation, crystalization, calcination, detonation, effervescence, and saturation. Water and fire, salt and sugar, lime and vinegar, are not very difficult to be procured; and a wine-glass is to be found in every house. The difference between an acid and alkali should be early ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... destruction so thickly and starkly outlined, under perfect control; unaffected by the hideous distortion of all ether-borne signals. Through a pirate screen it went, and under the terrific blast of its detonation one entire panel of the stricken battleship vanished, crumpled and broken. It should have been out, cold—but, to the amazement of the observers, it kept on fighting with scarcely lessened power! Three more of the frightful space-bombs had to be exploded ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... works differently from any other," he explained. "When the charge is fired there is not instantly a detonation and a bursting. The powder burns slowly and generates an immense amount of gas. It is this gas, accumulating in the cracks and crevices of the rock, that I hope will burst and disintegrate it. Of course, an explosion eventually follows, as you ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton
... apartigi. Detachment (milit.) tacxmento. Detail detalo. Details (minutes) detaleto. Detain malhelpi, deteni. Detect eltrovi. Deter malhelpi. Deteriorate difekti. Determine decidi. Determination decideco. Determined decida. Detest malami. Dethrone detroni. Detonation eksplodbruo. Detract kalumnii. Detriment malprofito, perdo. Detrimental malhelpa. Devastate dezertigi, ruinigi. Develope vastigi. Development vastigo. Deviate malrektigxi. Deviation malrektigxo. Device devizo. Devil ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... the infernal machine sped. A sickening pause—then a deafening detonation, followed by another and another, cut the stillness, and the earth beneath was aflame with light as the high explosives and shells stored in the concealed ammunition depot were set off. Nothing escaped destruction; flesh and blood, mortar and brick went skyward ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... slowing down under ordinary air, when all at once there was a dull deafening roar, and then for me—oblivion. I was only stunned and when I regained consciousness looked around and saw the men slowly regaining their feet. Redway was not killed, but the shock and concussion of the detonation of the dynamite made him lose his speech and he was bleeding profusely at the nose and ears. The cowcatcher, headlight and forward trucks of the engine were blown to smithereens, but fortunately the boiler ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... the side of the hearth where a few pieces of green wood smoked without burning, they started at each of the distant reports of the cannon. At each detonation that shook the window-panes, Mme. Favoral thought that it was, perhaps, the one that had ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... with a bang. A fainter detonation announced the whirlwind passage through the outer office. Footsteps ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... February 22, 1831, a violent detonation was suddenly heard in the coal mine of Bois-Monzil, belonging to M. Robinot. The waters from the old works rushed impetuously along the new galleries. "The waters, the waters!" such was the cry that resounded ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... he was startled by a dull and jarring detonation from within. This was followed by a monstrous hissing and simmering as from a kettle of the bigness of St. Paul's; and at the same time from every chink of door and window spirted an ill- smelling vapour. The cat disappeared with a cry. Within the lodging-house feet pounded on the stairs; the door ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... from the enemy support line, as observers state that they saw a sheet of flame run along this line, followed by a loud explosion. The bombs, which emitted a trail of sparks, were seen in the air in large numbers and made a loud whirring noise. They burst with a large detonation, producing a thick, white cloud. The discharge was followed immediately by a bombardment with H.E. shrapnel and gas shell, and a raid was attempted south of Givenchy. We learn that so strong was the gas discipline ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden
... scaling ladders, got down to the ledge; and from this point they and Oldham slung themselves down to the bed of the stream, by the same means. A few sappers had followed, when a box of dynamite exploded with a violent detonation, and the rest of the ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... in the buildings. Turpentine vapor united with chlorine gas may not produce explosion, but by spreading flames almost instantly throughout the burning buildings, such burnings have practically equaled, if not excelled, explosions, which may sometimes be fire-extinguishers. In such cases detonation may be prevented by there being ample space to receive the suddenly ignited vapor, lessening the tension of it, but carrying the flames much more rapidly than otherwise to inflammable materials at ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... the War Office and to find their way to my department. For some reason or other they always presented themselves after dinner—like the coffee. The first arrival was a young cavalry officer, knocked off his horse in the preliminary encounters by what had evidently been the detonation of a well-pitched-up high-explosive, and who was still suffering from a touch of what we now know as shell-shock. He proved to be the very embodiment of effective military training, because, although ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... struggling as of men's bodies being tossed about, striking violently against the partitions and bulkheads. At the same instant arose a screaming of women's voices, and one voice, and that Sir John Malyoe's, crying out as in the greatest extremity: "You villains! You damned villains!" and with the sudden detonation of a pistol fired into the close space ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... and it outlined it as clearly as a figure on the moving picture screen. Then suddenly there came a flash, followed by a dull detonation, and a black cloud appeared, spreading into a flower of death near the cigar, and at the edge of the black beam. The cheers grew frantic. The anti-aircraft battery in the White House grounds had grasped the situation, and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... plunging he had reached the river bank. The tranquil silver surface quivered and glittered before him. He saw what he knew he would see, the black target of a man's head above it, making for the Bar. He took deliberate aim and fired. There was no echo to that sharp detonation; a distant dog barked, there was a slight whisper in the trees beside him, that was all! But the head of the man was no longer visible, and the liquid silver filmed over again, without ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
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