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More "Saltpetre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... caldrons, such as are used for bucking linen; but they must be large and very strong, because they are to be used in making saltpetre, ii ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... represented, however, that vessels are not built in a day, and pointed out the difficulties in the way of naval warfare. I showed that the power of a cannon depends upon the strength of the powder, and the strength of the powder upon the sulphur and saltpetre; the latter determining the explosive force forwards and backwards, and the former, the same force towards either side. Therefore to ensure powder being powerful, there should be seven parts saltpetre out of ten. The ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... Saltpetre (KO, NO^{5}).—Saturate boiling water with commercial saltpetre, filter while hot in a beaker glass, which is to be placed in cold water, and stir while the solution is cooling. The greater part of the saltpetre will crystallize in very fine crystals. Place these crystals upon ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous
... a crumpled and disgustingly filthy doth three-cornered ways on to the dusty table and clapped thereon a couple of dirty knives and forks, a pair of cracked plates, two poley cups and chipped saucers. Next came a plate of salt meat, red with saltpetre, and another of dark, dry, sodden bread. She then disappeared to the kitchen to make the tea, and during her absence two of the little boys commenced to fight. One clutched the tablecloth, and over went the whole display with a bang—meat-dish ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... rub it first with saltpetre, in the proportion of half an ounce, and the like quantity of moist sugar, to a pound of common salt. (See ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... corners were sacks of flour stuck upright in rows. These were the overflow from the neighbouring granary, to which three stone steps led. By way of decoration for the apartment, hanging to a nail in the middle of the wall, whose green paint scaled off from the effects of the saltpetre, was a crayon head of Minerva in gold frame, underneath which was written in Gothic letters "To ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... that they become complicity Despotism natural to puissant personalities Egyptian tobacco, mixed with opium and saltpetre Have never known in the morning what I would do in the evening I no longer love you Imagine what it would be never to have been born Melancholy problem of the birth and death of love Only one thing infamous in ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Immortals of the French Academy • David Widger
... ye, Miss Kingsnorth. Faith, it's a blessin' ye brought the boy here. There's no tellin' What the prison-surgeon would have done to him. It is saltpetre, they tell me, the English doctors rub into the Irish wounds, to kape them smartin'. And, by the like token, they do the same too in the English House of Commons. Saltpetre in Ireland's wounds ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... one afternoon when sitting at his table preparing some villainous compound for the Queen, "go down to the laboratory, boy, and fetch me some gunpowder, sulphur, saltpetre, and charcoal." ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... stages owing to the activity of the so-called "nitrifying" bacteria (an unfortunate term inasmuch as "nitrification" refers merely to a particular phase of the cycle of changes undergone by nitrogen). It had long been known that under certain conditions large quantities of nitrate (saltpetre) are formed on exposed heaps of manure, &c., and it was supposed that direct oxidation of the ammonia, facilitated by the presence of porous bodies, brought this to pass. But research showed that this process of nitrification ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... Just how these mineral deposits were formed it is difficult to explain, the most plausible theory being that this desert was once the bottom of an inland sea having vast quantities of seaweed covered with sand. In the gradual decay of this substance the nitrate of soda, or "Chile saltpetre," was formed. ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... Iodine.—This is one of the simple chemical bodies which was discovered in 1812 by M. Courtois, of Paris, a manufacturer of saltpetre, who found it in the mother-water of that salt. Its properties were first studied into by M. Gay Lussac. It partakes much of the nature of chlorine and bromine. Its affinity for other substances is so powerful as to prevent it from existing in an isolated state. It occurs combined ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey
... for the wants of his men, and strained every nerve to get them in good fighting order for the approaching campaign. He replenished his treasury with a large amount of silver which he drew from the mines of La Plata Saltpetre, obtained in abundance in the neighbourhood of Cuzco, furnished the material for gunpowder. He caused cannon, some of large dimensions, to be cast under the superintendence of Pedro de Candia, the Greek, who, it may be remembered, had first come into ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... February, the nights, and especially the early hours of the morning before sun-rise, are so cold, that small quantities of water are covered with a thin sheet of ice. For this purpose, either shallow pits are dug in earth rich in saltpetre, {212b} and small shallow dishes of burnt porous clay are filled with water, and placed in these pits, or when the soil does not contain any saltpetre, the highest terraces on the houses are covered with straw, and the little dishes of water are placed up there. The thin crusts ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... 83: The saltpetre and brimstone are probably derived from Terodant in Suse, where ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... took them home. I do not think the young gentlemen meant any harm, for they provided plenty of food, and took them to bed with them. They set my daughter at liberty next day, and she spoke very handsomely of the young gentlemen, and said they had cured the skins with saltpetre, and were stuffing them when she left. But the subject was always an ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... good man and true, who was employed in the Hotel de Saltpetre, in the Ruee Saleratus," replied Mr. ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... the captain, who says his share will be about seven and a half cents! We steam alongside, and learn that our prize is the schooner St. George, bound for Wilmington, via the Bermudas, with a cargo of salt, saltpetre, etc., and worth perhaps four thousand dollars. We send our prize list on board the flagship, and have a nice chat over the capture. It puts us in good humor, and our vessels chassee around each other till afternoon, when ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... manufactures, we must have importations of raw material. Large purchases of hemp and flax are alleged to have been made in the north of Europe, for spring shipment, and cotton from the United States is only delayed by the want of ships. Wool from Spain, and the Mediterranean, saltpetre, oil-seeds, &c., from India, and a host of minor articles, have also been kept back by the same cause, and will pour in upon us to make up our deficiencies directly any relaxation shall take place (if such could be foreseen) of the universal influx of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... country, however, interspersed with jheels and nullahs, it is difficult to form a cultivation without a considerable mixture of low lands, more or less, according to the situation of the Assamee's fields. Great care should be taken, at all events, to guard against oosur lands, or such as abound with saltpetre; these can be most easily detected in the dry months. Puchkatak, that is, lands slightly touched with oosur, have been known to answer, as partaking more of the nature of doruss soil; but the crop is generally ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... candles are those run in moulds. For this purpose, melt together one quarter of a pound of white wax, one quarter of an ounce of camphor, two ounces of alum, and ten ounces of suet or mutton-tallow. Soak the wicks in lime-water and saltpetre, and when dry, fix them in the moulds and pour in the melted tallow. Let them remain one night to cool; then warm them a little to loosen them, draw them out, and when they are hard, put them in a box in a dry ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... burden, much worse than our modern land-tax? Besides that all the gentry of France serve in the army on very slender pay, and to the utter ruin of their fortunes, all those who are not noble have their lands heavily taxed. Does he not know that wine, brandy, soap, candles, leather, saltpetre, gunpowder, are taxed in France? Has he not heard that government in France has made a monopoly of that great article of salt? that they compel the people to take a certain quantity of it, and at ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Overgrown with ivy, it has rather the appearance of a bower than of a place of terror and anguish. Several of these side halls are now used as workshops by rope-makers, while in others the manufacture of saltpetre is carried on. The region around is rocky, but without displaying any high mountains. I saw numerous grottoes, some of them with magnificent entrances, which looked as though they had been cut in the rocks by art. In one of these grottoes water fell from above, forming ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... like smiths at their forges Worked the red Saint George's Cannoneers; And the "villainous saltpetre" Rung a fierce, discordant metre Round their ears; As the swift Storm-drift, With hot sweeping anger, came the horseguards' clangor On our flanks. Then higher, higher, higher, burned the old-fashioned ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... are veins of metal in Maranham, they have never been worked; but some saltpetre-works have been established there. There are mineral and medicinal waters in some districts; but I believe they have not been analyzed: in short, little attention has hitherto been paid to any thing but the woods, and the growth of coffee, cotton, ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... thirty lives were lost by the explosion of various materials in the buildings burned The occurrence has elicited from Prof. ROGERS, of the University of Pennsylvania, a letter stating that, in his opinion, saltpetre by itself is not explosive, but that the great quantity of oxygen which it contains greatly increases the combustion of ignited matter with which it may be brought in contact, and that this may evolve gases so rapidly as to cause an explosion.—The cholera is prevailing with a good deal of fatality ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... may hope to make them seem true, or even probable, to the doubting soul, in an hour's discourse, then we may join without madness in the day's exultant festivities; the bells may ring, the cannon may roar, the incense of our harmless saltpetre fill the air, and the children who are to inherit the fruit of these toiling, agonizing years, go about unblamed, making day and night ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... had been told off specially for the purpose, at once set to work at the cannon. These were filled nearly to the muzzle with powder, and the plugs were driven with mallets tight into the muzzles. Slow matches, composed of strips of calico dipped in saltpetre, were placed in the touch holes. Then the word was given, and the whole party fell back to the gate just as the Dahomans in great numbers came running up. In less than a minute after leaving the battery twelve tremendous reports, following closely one ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... I learned the existence of gold and copper mines, the metals being combined; and I saw specimens of coal taken from two or three different points, but I do not know what the indications were as to quality. Brimstone, saltpetre, muriate and carbonate of soda, and bitumen, are abundant. There is little doubt that California is as rich in minerals of all kinds as any ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... Epraim's uncle Jackrael Israel, a white-haired old man, his wife Hester, a Jew from Cutch, one Hyem Benjamin, and Ephraim, Priest and Butcher, made up the list of the Jews in Shushan. They lived in one house, on the outskirts of the great city, amid heaps of saltpetre, rotten bricks, herds of kine, and a fixed pillar of dust caused by the incessant passing of the beasts to the river to drink. In the evening the children of the City came to the waste place to fly their kites, and Ephraim's sons held aloof, watching the sport ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... sulphuric acid by burning sulphur and nitre together in earthen pots, calling it Gunduk Ka Attar, or "attar of sulphur." Nitric acid, which was prepared, not by the process described by Geber, but by mixing saltpetre, alum, and a portion of a liquor obtained by spreading cloths over the common gram plant, and leaving them exposed to the dew, when they were found to absorb the acid salt so abundantly secreted by the plant on the surface of ...
— On the Antiquity of the Chemical Art • James Mactear
... though, as a memorandum of 1580 says, "if the Spaniards catch you trading with them, you shall die for it." Probably what they objected to most was the sale of arms to the infidel. From Barbary came sugar, saltpetre, dates, molasses and carpets. Andalusia demanded fine cloth and cambric in return for wines called "seckes," sweet oil, raisins, salt, cochineal, indigo, sumac, silk and soap. Portugal took butter, cheese, fine cloth "light green or sad blue," lead, tin ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... India has ever been noted for the excellence and prolific yield of its sugar crops. From here, also, indigo and saltpetre are exported in large quantities. No tea-gardens were seen,—these were left behind in the hills,—nor had we met with coffee plantations since leaving Ceylon. All along the route we saw fruit trees in considerable variety, of such as are indigenous to central ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... handsomely appointed, though not with the same degree of splendour that prevails in Bengal, where the quantity of plate makes so striking a display. The large silver vases, in which butter and milk are enclosed in a vessel filled with saltpetre, which give to the breakfast-tables of Calcutta an air of such princely grandeur, ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... was only by means of a series of experiments that a safety-lamp could be invented. Thomas Aquinas would never have thought that his barbara and baralipton would enable him to ascertain the proportion which charcoal ought to bear to saltpetre in a pound of gunpowder. Neither common sense nor Aristotle would have suffered him to fall into ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... per annum spent On making brain and body meeter For all the murderous intent Comprised in "villainous saltpetre!" And after—ask the Yusufzaies What comes of all ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... matter, and not in its molecules, that this tremendous dynamic force resides. Man, knowing this, harnesses them into his service, first by forcing them into unnatural alliances, as in the case of charcoal, sulphur and saltpetre, and then successfully pitting them in conflict against the rocks and the general inertia of matter. To charge all the destructive work they do on the innocent and harmless molecules, which are two steps removed from the actual force ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... can't do it with the help of farthings. And as respects aliquot parts, four shares among three persons are as incommensurable as a guinea is against any attempt at giving change in half-crowns. However, this was all the preservation that the horse found. No saltpetre or sugar could be had: but the frost was antiseptic. And the horse was preserved in as useful a sense as ever ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... feet high, so as to form a tank. Below this is a sunken cistern—say eight feet square—into which the drainage would be conducted from the upper platform. In this cistern a force-pump is fitted, and the cistern is half filled with a solution of saltpetre and sal-ammoniac. ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... contraband, or merchandizes prohibited; (p. 082) and under this denomination of contraband and merchandizes prohibited, shall be comprehended only warlike stores and arms, as mortars, artillery, with their artifices and appurtenances, fusils, pistols, bombs, grenades, gunpowder, saltpetre, sulphur, match, bullets and balls, pikes, sabres, lances, halberts, casques, cuirasses, and other sorts of arms, as also soldiers, horses, saddles, and furniture for horses; all other effects and merchandizes, not before ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... less than 4,000 inhabitants, but the peripatetic 'patriots' of 1793 had contrived to do mischief enough, even in this small and quiet corner of France, to earn the detestation of its people. They desecrated its churches, turning Notre-Dame into a saltpetre factory, stealing the church bells to sell them, pulling down the steeples and towers, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... walad (children). We shall see what we shall see. Yusuf even thinks he can be persuaded to sign the treaty. All the Kailouees are very fond of powder, and also very much alarmed at it. They say they could themselves make plenty of powder if saltpetre were found them. ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... Durham, mines of iron, coal, slate, and freestone; and in every shire of England, generally quarries of hard stone, chalk, and flint: these be commodities honorable and not feigned, being of such estimation that France, nor other realms, may well forbear; and as for saltpetre, there is sufficient made in England to furnish our turn for the wars. Also we have hot fountains or bathes, which you nor no other realms christened have."—Sign. L. v. rev. If ancient GILDAS speak the truth, Great Britain was no contemptible place ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... that makes common salt crystallize in the form of cubes, and saltpetre in the shape of six-sided prisms? We see no reason why it should not have been just the other way, salt in prisms and saltpetre in cubes, or why either should take an exact geometrical outline, ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... to be pickled it should be dusted lightly with saltpetre sprinkled with salt, and allowed to drain twenty-four hours; then plunge it into pickle, and keep under with a weight. It is good policy to pickle a portion of the sides. They, after soaking, are sweeter to cook with vegetables, and the grease fried from them ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... of alcohol; One and a half ounces of glycerine; One ounce of liverwort; Three hundred and twenty grains of saltpetre; Forty drops ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... their cane brakes, they left their families, and generously marched to the assistance of their friends. Nine hundred of them mounted, under the command of Col. Campbell, poured down from the Allegany, like the torrents from its summit. Gunpowder they had already learnt to prepare from the saltpetre in their caves, and lead they dug out of their mines. Dried venison satisfied their hunger, pure water slaked their thirst, and at the side of a rock they enjoyed comfortable repose. Armed with rifles, sure to the white speck ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... him for this purpose. With the aid of his pickaxe, Dantes, after the manner of a labor-saving pioneer, dug a mine between the upper rock and the one that supported it, filled it with powder, then made a match by rolling his handkerchief in saltpetre. He lighted it and retired. The explosion soon followed; the upper rock was lifted from its base by the terrific force of the powder; the lower one flew into pieces; thousands of insects escaped from the aperture Dantes had previously ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... oldest methods of preserving food. The addition of a little saltpetre helps to preserve the color of the meat. Brine is frequently used to temporarily preserve meat and other substances. Corned beef is a popular form of salt preservation. All salted meats require long, slow cooking. They should ...
— Public School Domestic Science • Mrs. J. Hoodless
... silver, bullion, quicksilver, immense quantities of copper, Hessian wool, very fine, glass, fustians of a high price, to the value of above 600,000 crowns annually; woad, madder, and other dye stuffs; saltpetre, great quantities of mercery, and household goods, very fine, and of excellent quality: metals of all sorts, to a great amount; arms; Rhenish wine, of which Guicciardini speaks in the highest terms, as good for the health, and not affecting either the head or the stomach, ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... the province of Suse from that of Draha, abound in iron, copper, and lead. Ketiwa, a district on the declivity of Atlas, east of Terodant, contains also mines of lead and brimstone; and saltpetre also, of a superior quality, abounds in the neighbourhood of Terodant. In the same mountains, about fifty or sixty miles south-west of Terodant, there are mines of iron of a very malleable quality, equal to ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... powder and ball, the veriest dunce in Christendom may blow out a gentleman's brain, while it takes an artiste to run one through the body handsomely. Give me the sword, Carlton-I've a great horror, in such cases, of 'villanous saltpetre.'" ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... people of the mill, that the water of the larger spring, in summer time, stops at certain periods and resumes its issue from under the rock, eight or ten times in a day. Further up in the mountain, above the spring, is a large cavern where the people sometimes collect saltpetre; but it is more abundant in a cavern still higher in ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... cut out in Shivers as Dutch-Beef:—Take a middling leg of mutton, then take half a pound of brown sugar, and rub it hard all over your mutton, and let it lie twenty-four hours; then take an ounce and half of saltpetre, and mix it with a pound of common salt, and rub that all over the mutton every other day, till 'tis all on, and let it lie nine days longer; keep the place free from brine, then hang it up to dry ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... invented the alembic, the retort, the sand-bath, the water-bath and other valuable instruments. To them is due the discovery of antimony, sulphuric ether and phosphorus, the cupellation of gold and silver, the determining of the properties of saltpetre and its use in gunpowder, and the discovery of the distillation of essential oils. This was the success of failure, a wondrous process of Nature for the highest growth,—a mighty lesson of comfort, strength, and encouragement if man would only ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... floor, as well as the little yard behind, which was covered with his workshops and warehouses; the small remaining space being taken up by the porter's lodge and the passage entry in the middle. The staircase walls were half rotten with damp and covered with saltpetre to such a degree that the house seemed to ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... earth are saltpetre, which is found in the Elburz, and in Azerbijan; sulphur, which abounds in the same regions, and likewise on the high plateau; alum, which is quarried near Tabriz; naphtha and gypsum, which are found in Kurdistan; and talc, which exists in the mountains near Koum, in the vicinity of ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... loose twisted hemp soaked in saltpetre and powder out of the box directly, and armed with a powder-bag each, they hurried trembling back, to reach the gateway, peer round the corner, and see that the attack was going on as fiercely as ever, while the defence was very weak, and they knew that before long ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... the key,—words from that book of creative power, words from that living Word, which he must study who would have his vision of God fulfilled, who would make of his 'good news' something more than a Poet's prophecy. He who found in the peaceful nitre, in the harmless sulphur, in the saltpetre, 'villanous' not yet, in the impotence of fire and sulphur, combining in vain against the motion of the resisting ball,—not less real to his eye, because not apparent,—or in the villanous compound itself, while yet the spark is wanting,—'rules' ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... casks of brandy, quantities of chestnuts and potatoes; and besides all this, chests containing ointments, drugs and lint, and lastly a complete arsenal of muskets, swords, and bayonets, a quantity of powder ready-made, and sulphur, saltpetre, and charcoal-in short, everything necessary for the manufacture of more, down to small mills to be turned by hand. Lalande kept his word: the life of an old woman was not too much to give in return for such ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... ham separately with 1/2 teaspoonful of saltpetre (use a small spoon); then rub each ham with a large tablespoonfulof best black pepper; then rub each ham with a gill of molasses (black strap ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... is much more severe than in the midst of the temperate zone might reasonably be expected; this uncommon rigor is attributed to the height of the plains, which rise, especially towards the East, more than half a mile above the level of the sea; and to the quantity of saltpetre with which the soil is deeply impregnated. In the winter season, the broad and rapid rivers, that discharge their waters into the Euxine, the Caspian, or the Icy Sea, are strongly frozen; the fields are covered with a bed of snow; and the fugitive, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... Withal, it is inundated at certain periods of the year by the river's overflow, but in the dry season parched by the rays of a tropical sun. Its surface is then covered with a white efflorescence, which resembles a heavy hoar frost; this, called salitre, being a sort of impure saltpetre, left after the evaporation and ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... that like the early snowdrop, it comes forth in a barren season, and contents itself with foretelling the reader that choicer flowers are preparing to appear." Upon the foreign supply of gunpowder being prohibited, he proposed a plan, in the Pennsylvanian Journal, of a saltpetre association for the voluntary supply ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... fellow in the play who would have loved war had they not digged villainous saltpetre from the harmless earth. The countryside, too, in my opinion, would be more peaceful of a summer afternoon were it not overrun with dogs. Let me be plain! I myself like dogs—sleepy dogs blinking ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... Massachusetts, Daughters of Liberty, who formed anti-tea leagues, proclaimed inherent rights, and demanded an independency in advance of the men; those of New York, who tilled the fields, and, removing their hearth-stones, manufactured saltpetre from the earth beneath, to make powder for the army; those of New Jersey, who rebuked traitors; those of Pennsylvania, who saved the army; those of Virginia, who protested against taxation without representation; those of South Carolina, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... "and your Red River water to boot! Brr, brr! d——d bad water your Red River water, say I! No, no, talk to me of Mississippi water.[5] If I am to be drowned, it sha'n't be in the stinking Red River. I've a taste in my mouth as if I had swallowed saltpetre and sulphur, with a dash of prussic acid. But tell me," cried he to the passengers and sailors by whom he was surrounded, "who gave him his settler? The deer, I ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... of this journal served, were distributed on board the fleet; seventy in one half galley, seventy in another, and eighteen in the galley of the Kiahya, who likewise had along with him the Venetian consul. The rest of these men were distributed in two galleons which carried the powder, saltpetre, brimstone, ball, meal, biscuit, and other necessaries for the fleet. The Pacha likewise sent his treasure on board the gallies, which was contained in forty-two chests, covered with ox hides and oil-cloth. On the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... pounds of beef make a pickle with two gallons of water, four pounds of salt, one and a half pounds of brown sugar, one and a half ounces of saltpetre, half an ounce of saleratus. Put these ingredients on to boil, and when they boil, skim, and put away to cool. When cold, put the beef in it. Put weights on the meat, to keep ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa
... the hands of those who have no idea of honor unless it will yield somewhat to eat, no use for patriotism unless it can be made to pay. When we concluded to protect our citizens from Weylerian savagery, instead of sending a warship to Havana to read the riot act if need be in villainous saltpetre we had our ambassador crawling about the European courts humbly begging permission of the powers, and as we got no permission we did no protecting. When the church people elect me president of this Republic ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... hitherto applied to no foreign power. We are using the utmost industry in endeavoring to make saltpetre, and with daily increasing success. Our artificers are also everywhere busy in fabricating small arms, casting cannon, &c. Yet both arms and ammunition are much wanted. Any merchants, who would venture to ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... accepted. I have in treaty another credit, which joined to this will purchase the articles directed in my instructions; the credit will be until May next, before which I hope remittances will be made. I have purchased of said M. Chaumont a quantity of saltpetre at ten sous, or five and one fourth per cent, in order that Captain Morgan might ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... unite with the oxygen of the air and thus build it into nitric acid which can be used by plant roots. This nitric acid if not immediately used will unite with lime or potash or soda or other similar substances and form nitrates, as nitrate of lime, nitrate of potash or common saltpetre. These nitrates are soluble in water and can be easily used by plant roots. If there are no plant roots to use them they are easily lost by being washed out of the soil. The work of the nitrifying ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich
... the crypt is also obtained through a door cut in the face of the rock, but this was made in 1793 when the soil and the bones of the old canons of the Church of the Three Kings were required for saltpetre to make gunpowder for the armies of the Republic. Over the door is a mask carved in the stone and a little window; above the monolithic church, standing on the platform of rock, is the exquisite flamboyant spire, not communicating with the church ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... and I. We used some of your cartridges for gunpowder. He got saltpetre and one or two other things from the chemist. They were quite a success," said Chris, with a touch of ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... with glass beads and seed-pearls; also some pearls and rubies, sapphires and crystal-stones; metal basins, copper kettles, and other copper and cast-iron pots; quantities of all sorts of nails, sheet-iron, tin and lead; saltpetre and gunpowder. They supply the Spaniards with wheat flour; preserves made of orange, peach, scorzonera, [235] pear, nutmeg, and ginger, and other fruits of China; salt pork and other salt meats; live fowls of good breed, and very fine capons; quantities of green ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... believe. Her nose is flat and crooked, and her brows grow down over her eyes; a dead spiteful, grey, goggling eye, to be sure she has. And her face is flat and broad; and as to colour, looks like as if it had been pickled a month in saltpetre: I dare say she drinks:—She has a hoarse, man-like voice, and is as thick as she is long; and yet looks so deadly strong, that I am afraid she would dash me at her foot in an instant, if I was to vex her.—So that with a heart more ugly than her face, she frightens me sadly: and I am undone ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... 1915 but for the commercial development of the Haber process by the I.G. The story is too well known to repeat at length. The basic element of explosives is nitrogen, which is introduced by nitric acid. This was produced from imported Chili saltpetre, but the blockade cut short these imports, and but for the Haber method, the vital step in producing nitric acid from the air, Germany would have been ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden
... oarsmen rowed the deer came down feeding by the water's side, as if they had been used to a keeper's call. On an excursion off the route they were following they overtook two canoes laden with bread. Among the bushes they found a refiner's basket. In it were quicksilver and saltpetre, prepared for assay, and the dust of ore which had been refined. It belonged to some Spaniards who escaped; but the natives, their companions, were caught. One of them, called Martino, proved a better pilot than Ferdinando and the old man. Naturally the refining apparatus suggested a hunt ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... of water a pound and a half of sugar or molasses, and two ounces of saltpetre. If it is to last a month or two, use six pounds of salt. If you wish to keep it through the summer, use nine pounds of salt. Boil all together; skim and let cool. Put meat in the vessel in which it is to stand; pour the pickle over the ...
— Recipes Tried and True • the Ladies' Aid Society
... salamoniako. Salary salajro. Sale vendo. Saleable vendebla. Salesman vendisto. Saline sala. Saliva kracxajxo. Sally (of wit) spritajxo. Salmon salmo. Saloon salono. Salt salo. Salt-cellar salujo. Salt-meat peklajxo. Saltpetre salpetro. Salubrious saniga. Salutation saluto. Salutary sanplena. Salute saluti. Salvage savado. Salvation savo. Salve sxmirajxo. Salver pladeto. Same sama. Same time, at the samtempe. Sameness ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... It's jeal'sy of me, Mr. Wilfrud, becas I'm a widde and just an abom'nation to garls, poor darlin's! And twenty shindies per dime we've been havin', and me such a placable body, if ye'll onnly let m' explode. I'm all powder, avery bit! and might ha' been christened Saltpetre, if born a boy. She hasn't so much as a shot to kill a goose, says Chump, poor fella! But he went, annyway. I must kiss somebody when I talk of 'm. Mr. Wilfrud, I'll take the girls, and entitle ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... eluded, of course, yet nevertheless the number of cargoes that slipped through was painfully inadequate to meet the needs of the fenced-in States. Clothing, medicines, articles of necessary household use were denied to civilians. Cannon, rifles, saltpetre, and other munitions of war were withheld from the Confederate armies. While the ports of the North were bustling with foreign trade, grass grew on the cobble-stoned streets along the waterfronts of Charleston and Savannah. Slow ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... the circulation of the other local journals, which resisted feebly at times, but in the matter of the Cory murder had not dared to do anything except follow the Tocsin's lead. The Tocsin, having lit the fire, fed it—fed it saltpetre and sulphur—for now ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... light paper are to be steeped in a solution of saltpetre, in the proportions of two ounces of the salt to one pint of water, to ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse
... venture and so happy were the poor creatures who found a comfortable home and kind treatment in their old age that the Ladies of Charity determined to found an institution on the same lines for all the beggars of Paris. A large piece of ground that had been used for the manufacture of saltpetre was accordingly obtained from the King, who also gave a large contribution of money toward the undertaking. The hospital, known as "La Salpetriere" from the use to which the ground had formerly been put, was soon in course of building, but the beggars who were destined to 1711 it, many of ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... traces of a large town, still exist. Sumerkent is unknown, but may have been near Astrachan, formerly named Hadschi-Aidar-Khan. But there are ruins of a town still existing on both sides of the Volga, which are now used for the purpose of making saltpetre.—Forst. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... powder, Bertie. We have plenty of cartridges for sporting purposes, or for fighting; but a rocket is a thing that wants a lot of powder, besides saltpetre and charcoal, ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... little walk," he said; "but I must first make a note of what you say, for, when I wish to remember something important, the devil makes confusion in my head. These, then, are means of dissolving gold—oil of vitriol, salts of ammonia, and saltpetre!" ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... degree of which we have no experience in England, though we lie to the north of them.[5] This arises in a measure from their distance from the sea, and again from their elevation of level, and further from the saltpetre with which their soil or their atmosphere is impregnated. The sole influence then of their fatherland, if I may apply to it such a term, is to drive its inhabitants from it to the ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... give them a decisive superiority over their Turkish foes. Such a weapon was in their hands; such a discovery had been made in the critical moment of their fate. The chemists of China or Europe had found, by casual or elaborate experiments, that a mixture of saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal, produces, with a spark of fire, a tremendous explosion. It was soon observed, that if the expansive force were compressed in a strong tube, a ball of stone or iron might be expelled with irresistible ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... being indispensable in making sulphuric acid, the commercial value of that salt had formerly an important influence upon its price. It is true that 100 pounds of saltpetre only are required to 1000 pounds of sulphur; but its cost was four times greater than an equal ...
— Familiar Letters of Chemistry • Justus Liebig
... preserving beef is by salting; and, when intended to keep for a long time, such as for the use of shipping, it is always salted with brine; but for family use it should be salted only with good salt; for brine dispels the juice of meat, and saltpetre only serves to make the meat dry, and give it a disagreeable and unnatural red color. Various experiments have been made in curing beef with salt otherwise than by hand-rubbing, and in a short space of time, and also to preserve ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... bar. When he came back we exchanged courtesies, and bought, for ourselves and for him, some of the sixpenny cigars of the house. We lingered over our drink in silence, and, for a time, nothing could be heard except the crackling of the saltpetre in the Sunday-Afternoon Splendidos. Then Georgie inquired what was doing at my end, and told me of what he was writing and of how he was amusing himself, and I ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... The fire to light the powder at the touch-hole was obtained by the use of a flint, a steel, and a tinder-box. The flint was struck sharply on the steel; a spark of fire fell into the tinderbox, and the match of hemp string, soaked in saltpetre, was readily lit, and fired off ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... mineral wealth of California. Popular attention has been but lately directed to it. But the discoveries that have already been made will warrant us in the assertion that California is one of the richest mineral countries in the world. Gold, silver, quicksilver, iron, copper, lead, sulphur, saltpetre, and other mines of great value have already been found. We saw a few days ago a beautiful specimen of gold from the mine newly discovered on the American Fork. From all accounts the mine is immensely ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... was a corresponding preparation; jars of water, quite new, stood on silver stands, with percolators attached, and covered with lids. Further on, on a platform, were placed spoons and cups, with salvers and covers; kulfis [147] of ice were arranged, and the goglets [148] were being agitated in saltpetre. ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... should think it possible to dive for a short distance, but prefer that some one else would try the experiment. With a log of wood for a pillow, one might sleep as on one of the patent mattresses. The taste of the water is salty and pungent, and stings the tongue like saltpetre. We were obliged to dress in all haste, without even wiping off the detestable liquid; yet I experienced very little of that discomfort which most travellers have remarked. Where the skin had been previously bruised, there was a slight smarting ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... serious argument, but the cheery, sentimental optimism of which he was one of the most persevering exponents—the kind of thing which vehemently protests that in the good time coming nobody shall be damned, or starved, or put in prison, or subjected to the perils of villainous saltpetre, or prevented from doing just what he likes, and that all existence ought to be and shortly will be a vaguely refined beer and skittles—did not lend itself very well to verse. Nor are Hunt's lyrics particularly strong. His best thing by ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... or radical of the acid which is extracted from nitre or saltpetre be better known, we have judged proper only to modify its name in the same manner with that of the muriatic acid. It is drawn from nitre, by the intervention of sulphuric acid, by a process similar to that described for extracting the muriatic acid, and by ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... are the essentials, it is well to get ready, also, some tinder. I have tried a great many different kinds of lint and punk, including a number that were artificially prepared, soaked with saltpetre or other combustibles. But these are not really fair play. The true woodcrafter limits himself to the things that he can get in the woods, and in all my recent fire-making I have contented myself with ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... German ideas had passed thus over our heads there ensued disgust and mournful silence, followed by a terrible convulsion. For to formulate general ideas is to change saltpetre into powder, and the Homeric brain of the great Goethe had sucked up, as an alembic, all the juice of the forbidden fruit. Those who did not read him, did not believe it, knew nothing of it. Poor creatures! The ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... of Saltpetre into the face of each ham; let it remain one day. Literally cover the ham with salt and pack it in a closed box. Leave it in box as many days as there are ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... pound, to be paid in gold; France, by her export duty on linen and cotton rags and skins of animals; Russia, by various export duties; Portugal, by her duties on wine exported; Great Britain, by her export duties, imposed in India, on gunny-cloth, linseed, jute, saltpetre, and opium; and Holland, by her monopoly and export duties on the coffee of Java,—give precedents for a tax on cotton. The United States are prohibited by the Constitution from levying an export duty, but may nevertheless impose an internal tax which will cling to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... their destruction. Its waters, filtering through the soil, were perpetually in contact with the lower courses of these buildings, and kept the foundations of the walls and the bases of the columns constantly damp: the saltpetre which the waters had dissolved in their passage, crystallising on the limestone, would corrode and undermine everything, if precautions were not taken. When the inundation was over, the subsidence of the water which impregnated ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... decoction of poppy tops, or oil of violets; to take away the moisture, use honey of roses, and let aqua mollis be dropped into the ears; or take virgin honey, half an ounce; red wines two ounces; alum, saffron, saltpetre, each a drachm, mix them at the fire; or drop in hemp seed ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... brought back our former misgivings. Molasses is a very common agent used to give color and render it toothsome. Various vegetable leaves, as the rhubarb, beech, walnut, and mullein, as well as the less delectable bran, yellow ochre, and hellebore, in snuff, are also sometimes used to defraud. Saltpetre is often sprinkled on, in making ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... Potosi in February. The first man I met (Major Hawking), on reaching the outer settlements, expressed surprise at seeing me, as he had heard from the hunters, who had been on my trail about eighty miles to the Saltpetre caves on the Currents River, that I had been killed by the Indians. Every one was pleased to see me, and no one more so than my kind Kentucky host, who had been the last to bid me adieu on the verge of ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... Calomel Camphor Gum Arabic Gum Asphaltum Gum Tragacanth Hemlock Oil Horehound Laudanum Licorice Root Magnolia Water Muriatic Acid Saltpetre Sienna Oil ...
— History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills • Robert B. Shaw
... of war is a thing that smites common-sense and Christianity in the face; so everything connected with it is utterly foolish, unchristian, barbarous, brutal, and savouring of the Feejee Islands, cannibalism, saltpetre, and the devil. ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... "if it could be purchased at the same price, it would be the cheaper manure. It contains 46-1/2 per cent of potash, and on soils, or for crops where potash is needed, we may sometimes be able to purchase saltpetre to advantage." ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... in the harvest, furriers preparing rich skins, children picking maize, drovers tending their flocks, wood-cutters returning heavily loaded from the mountains. Others again are engaged in carding and combing wool, navvies are digging irrigation canals, chemists are manufacturing saltpetre and gunpowder, armourers are making or mending firearms. Tailors, shoemakers, bricklayers, potters, millers, sawyers—every kind of labourer or artisan is here to be found. There are no idlers, and no unemployed. Everybody, from the humblest convert ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... committee; and so the Congress authorized the several colonies to export as much "produce, except horned cattle, sheep, hogs, and poultry, as they may deem necessary for the importation of arms, ammunition, sulphur, and saltpetre." Thus ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... Betsy Cole said o' her pork and 'ams when the pig wor killed and her hadn't salt nor saltpetre. She'd see to it some day. Meanwhile the maggots came and ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... the nitrous acid in the air might be the general restorative which I was in quest of; and the conjecture was favoured, by finding that candles would burn in air extracted from saltpetre. I therefore spent a good deal of time in attempting, by a burning glass, and other means, to impregnate this noxious air, with some effluvium of saltpetre, and, with the same view, introduced into it the fumes of the smoaking spirit of nitre; ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... the bar;" and while curiously-written letters from Generals Commander and Quattlebum, offering to bring their allied forces into the field-to blow this confederation down at a breath whenever called upon, are being published, to the great joy of all secessiondom; while saltpetre, broadswords, and the muskets made for us by Yankees to fight Yankees, and which were found to have wood instead of flint in their hammers, (and which trick of the Yankees we said was just like the Yankees,) are in great demand-and a few of our mob-politicians, who are all "Kern'ls" of regiments ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... is buying and shipping 2000 tons saltpetre, besides millions of dollars worth of arms and stores. If we can keep Wilmington, we can send out cotton and ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... Take pulverized saltpetre, moisten it, and subject it to the action of a slow fire until completely dried and granulated, of this take 75 parts, purified sugar 12 and a-half parts, moisten and grind together till completely blended, ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... a mixture of three cwt. of guano, one of salt, one and a half of saltpetre, and one of gypsum, for each acre; sow broadcast and plow in about four inches deep, and you will find your manure well paid for, and no exhaustion of the soil, as is usually the case wherever this crop is cultivated, as it is a very gross feeder, ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... forms the greater part of the various forms of blasting gelatines, such as gelatine dynamite and gelignite, both of which substances consist of a mixture of gun-cotton dissolved in nitro-glycerine, with the addition of varying proportions of wood-pulp and saltpetre, the latter substances acting as absorbing materials for the viscid gelatine. Nitro-glycerine is also largely used in the manufacture of smokeless powders, such as cordite, ballistite, ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... foothold in the crevices, and hand-grip in the stout iron hooks from which plump mutton-hams and beef sausages had hung ripening in the pungent smoke of burning wood and dried dung. There was a smell in his nostrils like charring wool and saltpetre. He hung over the wide hearth now. A short drop of not more than a foot or two would bring him safely ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... fanatical veneration. On that day they threw down the gauntlet before astonished Europe; and William the Conqueror, when he burnt his fleet, did not place himself with more audaciousness between victory and death. Without money, without credit, without arms, artillery, saltpetre, and armies; betrayed by Dumorier; Valenciennes being taken by the Austrians; Toulon in the hands of the English; the king of Prussia under the walls of Landau, and a country of ninety leagues extent devoured by one hundred and fifty thousand Vendeans, they published a decree, and on ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... island of Cubagua, which is rather more than 300 leagues from Hispaniola, nearly in latitude 10 deg. N. is about three leagues in circumference, entirely flat, and without water, having a dry barren soil impregnated with saltpetre, and only producing a few guiacum trees and shrubs. The soil does not even grow grass, and there are no birds to be seen, except those kinds which frequent the sea. It has no land animals, except a few rabbits. The few natives which inhabited it, fed on the pearl oysters, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... recollect this quality of the human mind. Suffer us to give them an example from a science of which you are a mighty master, that attempts to fix the element of mind only increase its activity, and that to calculate what may be from what has been is a very dangerous deceit.—Were all the saltpetre in India monopolized, this would only make chemical researches more ardent and successful. The chalky earths would be searched for it, and nitre beds would be made in every cellar and every stable. Did not ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... light. Matches are highly valued and readily purchased. The effect of the Circassian tobacco on the lungs is extremely bad, and among those tribes who use it many die from asthma and congestion of the lungs. This is principally due to the saltpetre with which it is impregnated. The Indian pipe is copied from the Eskimo, as the latter were the first to obtain and use tobacco. Many of the tribes call it ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... list to tarry; Our lampes burning bothe night and day, To bring about our craft if that we may; Our furnace eke of calcination, And of waters albification, Unslaked lime, chalk, and *glair of an ey,* *egg-white Powders diverse, ashes, dung, piss, and clay, Seared pokettes, saltpetre, and vitriol; And divers fires made of wood and coal; Sal-tartar, alkali, salt preparate, And combust matters, and coagulate; Clay made with horse and manne's hair, and oil Of tartar, alum, glass, barm, wort, argoil,* *potter's clay Rosalgar,* and other matters imbibing; *flowers of antimony And ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... in war, and the efforts made to render them more effective, went on augmenting till the introduction of the still more "villanous saltpetre," even then, however, coming to no sudden halt. Several of the instances that we have cited of machines of extraordinary power belong to a time when the use of cannon had made some progress. The old ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... low, damp room, long uninhabited, and which had served as a chapel, adjoining the dreary archway which led from one courtyard to the other, floored with great planks slimy and mouldy, to which the foot adhered, papered with a gray paper which had turned green, and which hung in rags, exuding saltpetre from the floor to the ceiling, lighted by two barred windows looking on to the courtyard, which had always to be left open on account of the smoky chimney. At the bottom of the room was the bed, and between the windows a table and two straw-bottomed chairs. The damp ran down the walls. ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... In the morning I started for the saltpetre-works, a distance of fourteen leagues. Having ascended the steep coast-mountains by a zigzag sandy track, we soon came in view of the mines of Guantajaya and St. Rosa. These two small villages are placed at the very mouths of the mines; ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... '97, before Anvil City was located, or Eldorado District organized. John Gordon was a Yankee, and should have known better. But he passed the sharp word at a time when Jan's blood-shot eyes blazed and his teeth gritted in torment. And because of this, there was a smell of saltpetre in the tent, and one lay quietly, while the other fought like a cornered rat, and refused to hang in the decent and peacable manner ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... been tried, and many have failed, no doubt; it is only stubborn, reckless perseverance that can hope to succeed; it is well that we recognise this. How many ages did men try to make gunpowder and never succeeded? They would put saltpetre to charcoal, or charcoal to sulphur, or saltpetre to sulphur, and so were ever unable to make the compound explode. But it has only been discovered within the last few hundred years that all three were needed. ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... any interruption of their plans rather favors their execution. But they operate only within a narrow area which it is easy for the husband to make still narrower; and if he keeps cool he will end by extinguishing this piece of living saltpetre. ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... plans rather favors their execution. But they operate only within a narrow area which it is easy for the husband to make still narrower; and if he keeps cool he will end by extinguishing this piece of living saltpetre. ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... ounces of alcohol; One and a half ounces of glycerine; One ounce of liverwort; Three hundred and twenty grains of saltpetre; Forty drops of wintergreen. ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... said, it does seem hard, from a wholly disinterested point of view, that so many mighty men, with swift ships, armed with villainous saltpetre and sharp steel, should have set their keen faces all together and at once to nip, defeat, and destroy as with a blow, liberal and well-conceived proceedings, which they had long regarded with a larger mind. Every one who had been led to embark soundly and kindly in this branch of trade ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... of India has ever been noted for the excellence and prolific yield of its sugar crops. From here, also, indigo and saltpetre are exported in large quantities. No tea-gardens were seen,—these were left behind in the hills,—nor had we met with coffee plantations since leaving Ceylon. All along the route we saw fruit trees in considerable variety, ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... of salt, a table-spoonful of powdered white-sugar, and one of saltpetre. Work this quantity into six pounds of fresh-made butter. Put the butter into a stone pot, that is thoroughly cleansed. When you have finished putting down your butter, cover it with a layer of salt, and let it remain covered until ...
— The American Housewife • Anonymous
... mixture of three cwt. of guano, one of salt, one and a half of saltpetre, and one of gypsum, for each acre; sow broadcast and plow in about four inches deep, and you will find your manure well paid for, and no exhaustion of the soil, as is usually the case wherever this crop is cultivated, as it is a very gross feeder, and requires very rich land or great deal of manure; ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... brine in the middle of October, after the following manner: get a thirty gallon cask, take out one head, drive in the bung, and put some pitch on it, to prevent leaking. See that the cask is quite tight and clean. Put into it one pound of saltpetre powdered, fifteen quarts of salt, and fifteen gallons of cold water; stir it frequently, until dissolved, throw over the cask a thick cloth, to keep out the dust; look at it often and take off the scum. These proportions have been accurately ascertained—fifteen ...
— The Virginia Housewife • Mary Randolph
... tablespoonful of Saltpetre into the face of each ham; let it remain one day. Literally cover the ham with salt and pack it in a closed box. Leave it in box as many days as there are ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... they became quite hot. These were the pre-lucifer days. The fire to light the powder at the touch-hole was obtained by the use of a flint, a steel, and a tinder-box. The flint was struck sharply on the steel; a spark of fire fell into the tinderbox, and the match of hemp string, soaked in saltpetre, was readily lit, and ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... have been gone an hour. There, steady, steady, old horse. Confound this weed! What rascals these tobacconists are! You never can get a cheroot now worth smoking. Every one of them goes sputtering up the side, or charring up the middle, and tasting like tow soaked in saltpetre and tobacco juice. Well, I suppose I shall get ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... soldiers were on the point of wanting it. The magazines were empty. The administrators of the powder-mills were assembled to know what they could do. They declared that the annual produce amounted to three millions of pounds only, that the basis of it was saltpetre drawn from India, that extraordinary encouragements might raise them to five millions; but that no hopes ought to be entertained of exceeding that quantity. When the members of the Committee of Public Welfare ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... if all these things are true; if we may hope to make them seem true, or even probable, to the doubting soul, in an hour's discourse, then we may join without madness in the day's exultant festivities; the bells may ring, the cannon may roar, the incense of our harmless saltpetre fill the air, and the children who are to inherit the fruit of these toiling, agonizing years, go about unblamed, making day and night vocal ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... of getting nitre is extremely interesting, extended and elaborate, giving the reader a full view of pioneer conditions and endeavor. The scheme of purification of nitre for gunpowder use is illuminating and attractive. Attention is directed to the saltpetre rock and caves of the ...
— James Cutbush - An American Chemist, 1788-1823 • Edgar F. Smith
... excited as the people, and bent on murdering every one they knew to be of Mazarin's party; but I pacified them as I had done the others. The First President, seeing me coming in, said that "I had been consecrating oil mixed, undoubtedly, with saltpetre." I heard the words, but made as if I did not, for had I taken them up, and had the people known it in the Great Hall, it would not have been in my power to have saved the life of ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... from Generals Commander and Quattlebum, offering to bring their allied forces into the field-to blow this confederation down at a breath whenever called upon, are being published, to the great joy of all secessiondom; while saltpetre, broadswords, and the muskets made for us by Yankees to fight Yankees, and which were found to have wood instead of flint in their hammers, (and which trick of the Yankees we said was just like the Yankees,) are in great demand-and a few of our mob-politicians, who are all "Kern'ls" of ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... a match, and stok, a stick), 'a gunner's forked staff to hold a match of lint dipped in saltpetre.' ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... trade, also, had been said to depend on the West Indian and the African. In the first place, it had but very little connection with the former at all. Its connection with the latter was principally on account of the saltpetre, which it furnished for making gunpowder. Out of nearly three millions of pounds in weight of the latter article, which had been exported in a year from this country, one half had been sent to Africa alone; ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... under this denomination of contraband and merchandizes prohibited, shall be comprehended only warlike stores and arms, as mortars, artillery, with their artifices and appurtenances, fusils, pistols, bombs, grenades, gunpowder, saltpetre, sulphur, match, bullets and balls, pikes, sabres, lances, halberts, casques, cuirasses, and other sorts of arms, as also soldiers, horses, saddles, and furniture for horses; all other effects ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... same objection against "villanous saltpetre" was made by ourselves in times of old: the French knights called gunpowder the Grave of Honor. This is natural enough, the bravest weapon being generally the shortest—that which places a man hand to hand with his opponent. ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... one of the oldest methods of preserving food. The addition of a little saltpetre helps to preserve the color of the meat. Brine is frequently used to temporarily preserve meat and other substances. Corned beef is a popular form of salt preservation. All salted meats require long, slow cooking. They should always be placed in cold ...
— Public School Domestic Science • Mrs. J. Hoodless
... roll of loose twisted hemp soaked in saltpetre and powder out of the box directly, and armed with a powder-bag each, they hurried trembling back, to reach the gateway, peer round the corner, and see that the attack was going on as fiercely as ever, while the defence was very weak, ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... one of the simple chemical bodies which was discovered in 1812 by M. Courtois, of Paris, a manufacturer of saltpetre, who found it in the mother-water of that salt. Its properties were first studied into by M. Gay Lussac. It partakes much of the nature of chlorine and bromine. Its affinity for other substances is so powerful as to prevent it from existing in an isolated state. It occurs combined with ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey
... the fellow in the play who would have loved war had they not digged villainous saltpetre from the harmless earth. The countryside, too, in my opinion, would be more peaceful of a summer afternoon were it not overrun with dogs. Let me be plain! I myself like dogs—sleepy dogs blinking in the firelight, friendly dogs ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... gray dawn of July nineteenth, a watchman discovered flames issuing from an oil store on New Street. A carpenter shop next door was soon in flames. A large building in which quantities of saltpetre was stored caught next. A dense smoke filled the air, and a sudden explosive sound shot out a long tongue of flame that crossed the street. At intervals of a few moments others followed, causing everybody ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... fear of consequences. What are we either of us but children groping under the black cloak of our Maker?—who will not blind us with his light. Did he not give us also these lusts, the keen knife and the sweetness, these sensations that are like pineapple smeared with saltpetre, like salted olives from heaven, like being flayed with delight.... And did he not give us dreams fantastic beyond any lust whatever? What is the good of talking? Speak to your own kind. I have gone, Benham. I am lost already. There is no resisting any more, ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... astounding Lord Cressett and his gamekeeper, and vowed, as the young lord tried to relate subsequently, as well as he could recollect the words—here I have it in print:—'that he was a man pickled in saltpetre when an infant, like Achilles, and proof against powder and shot not marked with cross and key, and fetched up from the square magazine in the central depot of the infernal factory, third turning to the right off the grand arcade in Kingdom-come, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... week agone, Cammet was sent on a swift horse to Chateau Thierry. The good town craved of Pothon de Xaintrailles, who commands there, to send them what saltpetre he could spare for making gunpowder. The saltpetre came in this day by the Pierrefonds Gate, and Cammet with it, but on ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... believed that the unaided ingenuity of man could have done it; but when some wiseacres asserted that the devil had appeared to him, and given him the knowledge which he turned to such account, no one was bold enough to assert that it was improbable. His hint that saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal, mixed in certain proportions, would produce effects similar to thunder and lightning, was disregarded or disbelieved; but the legend of the brazen head which delivered oracles, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... soil very light and stony, extremes in temperature; the other chiefly from the dry sandy Traversia of Mendoza 3,000 feet more or less. If some of the bushes should grow but not be healthy, try a slight sprinkling of salt and saltpetre. The plain is saliferous. All the flowers in the Cordilleras appear to be autumnal flowerers—they were all in blow and seed, many of them very pretty. I gathered them as I rode along on the hill sides. If they will but choose to come up, I have no doubt many would be great ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... at their forges Worked the red St. George's Cannoneers; And the "villainous saltpetre" Rung a fierce, discordant metre Round their ears; As the swift Storm-drift, With hot sweeping anger, came the horse-guards' clangor On our flanks. Then higher, higher, higher burned the old-fashioned ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... that the nitrous acid in the air might be the general restorative which I was in quest of; and the conjecture was favoured, by finding that candles would burn in air extracted from saltpetre. I therefore spent a good deal of time in attempting, by a burning glass, and other means, to impregnate this noxious air, with some effluvium of saltpetre, and, with the same view, introduced into it the fumes of the smoaking spirit of nitre; but ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... of all its committees. On the 6th of May, he was made a member of the committee of privileges and elections; on the 7th, of a committee "to bring in an ordinance to encourage the making of salt, saltpetre, and gunpowder;" on the 8th, of the committee on "propositions and grievances;" on the 21st, of a committee "to inquire for a proper hospital for the reception and accommodation of the sick and wounded soldiers;" on the 22d, of a committee to inquire into ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... royal depot for saltpetre, and powder-mills near by had taught many of its people the process of manufacture, so no magazines of powder subject to explosion were provided, this indispensable substance being made as it was needed. Outside the walls the trees were cut down ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... he'd yell my head off. 'I found your father'd bought the business, my business, 'n' I was left out in the freezin', icy cold! Susan Clegg, I smashed a table,' he says, ''n' two chairs,' he says, ''n' I went to see the girl 'n' ask her to wait a little longer,—'n', Fire 'n' Brimstone 'n' Saltpetre, 'f your father hadn't gone 'n' married the ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... body of a robber and murderer who had expiated his crimes on the gallows. To endow it with the properties of a talisman, the blood was first of all extracted; it was then given a thorough soaking in saltpetre and pepper, and hung out in the sun. When perfectly dry, it was used as a candlestick for a candle made of white wax, sesame seed, and fat from the corpse of the criminal. Prepared thus, the Hand of Glory was deemed to have the power of aiding and protecting the robbers in their nefarious ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... make a pickle with two gallons of water, four pounds of salt, one and a half pounds of brown sugar, one and a half ounces of saltpetre, half an ounce of saleratus. Put these ingredients on to boil, and when they boil, skim, and put away to cool. When cold, put the beef in it. Put weights on the meat, to keep it ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa
... fortunate enough to meet with four Indian canoes laden with excellent bread. The Indians ran away and left their possessions, and Raleigh's dreams of mineral wealth were excited by the discovery of what he took to be a 'refiner's basket, for I found in it his quicksilver, saltpetre, and divers things for the trial of metals, and also the dust of such ore as he had refined.' He was minded to stay here and dig for gold, but was prevented by a phenomenon which he mentions incidentally, but which has done much to prove the reality of his narrative. ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... man for a dollar. He was the worst nigger that ever was. If there was a medical college here that wanted bodies, it would be a waste of money to bury him. But when he was sober he could bake beans for all that was out, and there was no man that could boil corned mule so as to take the taste of the saltpetre out, as ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... on our exploring expedition, passing at the entry the remnants of old saltpetre works, which were established here during the struggle at New Orleans. The extent of this cave would render a detail tedious, as there are comparatively few objects of interest. The greatest marvel is a breed of small ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... mode of preserving beef is by salting; and, when intended to keep for a long time, such as for the use of shipping, it is always salted with brine; but for family use it should be salted only with good salt; for brine dispels the juice of meat, and saltpetre only serves to make the meat dry, and give it a disagreeable and unnatural red color. Various experiments have been made in curing beef with salt otherwise than by hand-rubbing, and in a short space of time, and also to preserve it ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... forty feet square—surrounded by a wall two feet high, so as to form a tank. Below this is a sunken cistern—say eight feet square—into which the drainage would be conducted from the upper platform. In this cistern a force-pump is fitted, and the cistern is half filled with a solution of saltpetre and sal-ammoniac. ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... do that with a sponge an' you c'n do that with a string. All you gotta do is to steep 'em good an' hard in saltpetre. An' you c'n light that with burning glasses. It c'n be done twenty steps away!—All that's been done before now. There ain't nothin' new in all that to me. I know ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... beef or pale-board, which you can get, bone them and take off the inner skin; nick your beef about an inch distance, but mind you don't cut thro' the skin of the outside; then take two ounces of saltpetre, and beat it small, and take a large handful of common salt and mix them together, first sprinkling your beef over with a little water, and lay it in an earthen dish, then strinkle over your salt, so let it stand, four or five days, then take a pretty large quantity of all sorts of mild sweet ...
— English Housewifery Exemplified - In above Four Hundred and Fifty Receipts Giving Directions - for most Parts of Cookery • Elizabeth Moxon
... have been able to continue the war after the summer of 1915 but for the commercial development of the Haber process by the I.G. The story is too well known to repeat at length. The basic element of explosives is nitrogen, which is introduced by nitric acid. This was produced from imported Chili saltpetre, but the blockade cut short these imports, and but for the Haber method, the vital step in producing nitric acid from the air, Germany would have been compelled ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden
... however, that vessels are not built in a day, and pointed out the difficulties in the way of naval warfare. I showed that the power of a cannon depends upon the strength of the powder, and the strength of the powder upon the sulphur and saltpetre; the latter determining the explosive force forwards and backwards, and the former, the same force towards either side. Therefore to ensure powder being powerful, there should be seven parts saltpetre out of ten. ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... not yet been properly and in a revolutionary manner explored,"—"The strong chateaus, those feudal fortresses, that were ordered to be demolished attracted next the attention of your committee. Nature there had secretly regained her rights, and had produced saltpetre, for the purpose, as it should seem, of facilitating the execution of your decree by preparing the means of destruction. From these ruins, which still frown on the liberties of the Republic, we have extracted the means of producing good; ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... vider) the other towns hostile to King Charles. She begs the citizens of Riom, in order to accomplish this, to provide her with the means of pushing forward the siege of La Charite, and asks them to supply her with powder, saltpetre, sulphur, bows and arrows, cross-bows, and other material of war, having exhausted all her stock of such things in the late siege. Whether or not the burghers of Riom were able to carry out Joan's wishes is not known. The town of Bourges, however, provided funds out of its customs, and ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... they had imprisoned saltpetre in company with a bunch of matches—but he restrained his rebellious feelings; he would not give his judges the satisfaction of knowing his torment. He soon thought only of procuring consolation: he summoned his ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... a good man and true, who was employed in the Hotel de Saltpetre, in the Ruee Saleratus," replied Mr. ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... emetic (antimony and potassium tartrate) was the choice for a vomit, and cantharides (Spanish flies) was the most important ingredient of blistering plasters. Gum opium was administered for its narcotic effects, while gum camphor, nitre (saltpetre or potassium nitrate), and mercury (pure metal as well as certain salts) were employed for a variety of purposes. Lint, a form of absorbent material made by scraping or picking apart old woven material, also ...
— Drug Supplies in the American Revolution • George B. Griffenhagen
... explosive contained in dynamite, and forms the greater part of the various forms of blasting gelatines, such as gelatine dynamite and gelignite, both of which substances consist of a mixture of gun-cotton dissolved in nitro-glycerine, with the addition of varying proportions of wood-pulp and saltpetre, the latter substances acting as absorbing materials for the viscid gelatine. Nitro-glycerine is also largely used in the manufacture of smokeless powders, such as cordite, ballistite, ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... little brothers and sisters. One boy, however, 'had huffed her,' and got no penny. But she relented, and, when she went out, bought for him a mince-pie. Her visit of New Year's Day was to her maternal aunt, Mrs. Colley, living at Saltpetre Bank (Dock Street, behind the London Dock). She meant to return in time to buy, with her mother, a cloak, but the Colleys had a cold early dinner, and kept her till about 9 ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... into a round weighing forty pounds, three ounces saltpetre, let stand six or eight hours, pound three ounces allspice, one pound black pepper, two pounds salt, and seven ounces brown sugar; rub the beef well with the salt and spices. Let it remain fourteen days turning it every day and ...
— My Pet Recipes, Tried and True - Contributed by the Ladies and Friends of St. Andrew's Church, Quebec • Various
... were distributed on board the fleet; seventy in one half galley, seventy in another, and eighteen in the galley of the Kiahya, who likewise had along with him the Venetian consul. The rest of these men were distributed in two galleons which carried the powder, saltpetre, brimstone, ball, meal, biscuit, and other necessaries for the fleet. The Pacha likewise sent his treasure on board the gallies, which was contained in forty-two chests, covered with ox hides and oil-cloth. On the 20th, he issued orders for every one to embark in two days. On the 22d the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... was a man of few words, no sentiments, short methods; materialistic, we might say; quietly ferocious; indifferent as to means, positive as to ends, quick of perception, sure in matters of saltpetre, a stranger at the custom-house, and altogether—take him right—very much of a gentleman. He had been, for a whole day, beset with the idea that the way to catch a voudou was—to catch him; and as he had caught numbers of them on both sides of the ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... desert I heard the sound of a flute, pure sound in the pure air, delicate, sometimes almost comic with the comicality of a child who bends women to kisses and to nonsense-words. We had passed through the sandstorm, Safti and I, over the wastes of saltpetre, and come into a land of palm gardens where there was almost breathless calm. The feet of the camels paddled over the soft brown earth of the narrow alleys between the brown earth walls, and we looked down to right and left into the shady enclosed spaces, ...
— Smain; and Safti's Summer Day - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... I. We used some of your cartridges for gunpowder. He got saltpetre and one or two other things from the chemist. They were quite a success," said Chris, with a touch ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... strong remedies. Therefore, only use warm milk about the ears, with the decoction of poppy tops, or oil of violets; to take away the moisture, use honey of roses, and let aqua mollis be dropped into the ears; or take virgin honey, half an ounce; red wines two ounces; alum, saffron, saltpetre, each a drachm, mix them at the fire; or drop in hemp seed oil ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... boats, whose officers and crews took possession of her. Filling on the main-yard, they steered for the Federal squadron. Captain Wilson was now ordered into the boat, and carried on board the flagship, when he was informed by flag-officer Goldboursh that his vessel had saltpetre on board, and that consequently she was a lawful prize to the Federal Government, but that he might take a passage on board her to Philadelphia. He replied that his cargo was not saltpetre, that his ship was British property, and that he could not acknowledge ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... seed-pearls; also some pearls and rubies, sapphires and crystal-stones; metal basins, copper kettles, and other copper and cast-iron pots; quantities of all sorts of nails, sheet-iron, tin and lead; saltpetre and gunpowder. They supply the Spaniards with wheat flour; preserves made of orange, peach, scorzonera, [235] pear, nutmeg, and ginger, and other fruits of China; salt pork and other salt meats; live fowls of good breed, and very fine capons; quantities of green fruit, oranges ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... introduced in quantities of three or four pounds, or little more. Unable to support the delay and expense of this, Zumalacarregui established manufactories in secluded corners of Navarre and the Basque provinces; and then, with infinite risk, caused saltpetre to be brought from the very heart of Arragon, and subsequently from France. The powder that was at first produced was very weak and bad, and the manufacturers worked day and night till they found ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... torture their slaves: "When they cudgel a slave one can easily read in their faces the infernal joy it gives them to witness the tortures of their victims." He often saw women belaboring the naked back of a slave with branches of the cruel acacia delinens, and finally rub salt or saltpetre into the wounds. Napier (I., 59) ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... nitrogen of the compound is dissipated into the air in the form of gas, much of it in the form of free nitrogen. The basis from which explosive compounds are made contains nitrogen in the form in which it can be used by plants. Saltpetre, for example, is equally good as a fertilizer and as a basis for gunpowder. The products of the explosion are gases no longer capable of use by plants, and thus every explosion of nitrogen compounds aids in this gradual dissipation of nitrogen ...
— The Story Of Germ Life • H. W. Conn
... run in moulds. For this purpose, melt together one quarter of a pound of white wax, one quarter of an ounce of camphor, two ounces of alum, and ten ounces of suet or mutton-tallow. Soak the wicks in lime-water and saltpetre, and when dry, fix them in the moulds and pour in the melted tallow. Let them remain one night to cool; then warm them a little to loosen them, draw them out, and when they are hard, put them in a box in a ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... 'German Oriental Trading Company' founded for the import of fibrous materials for needs of military authorities, and a great carpet business established at Urfa with German machinery that will supplant the looms of Smyrna. A saltpetre factory is established at Konia by Herr Toepfer, whose enterprise is rewarded with an Iron Cross and a Turkish decoration. The afforestation near Constantinople, ordered by the Ministry of Agriculture, is put into German hands, and in the vilayet of Aidin ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... destruction by their arrogance and cruelty. Can you imagine that creatures of this kind, armed only with such miserable weapons as you may see in our museum of antiquities, clumsy iron tubes charged with saltpetre, have more than once threatened with destruction a tribe of the Vril-ya, which dwells nearest to them, because they say they have thirty millions of population—and that tribe may have fifty thousand—if the latter do not accept their notions of Soc-Sec (money getting) on some trading principles ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... walked all the length of the room very slowly, for what I had come for had completely gone out of my head. Fortunately the man never heard me until I had recollected it. Then he got up, and I asked him for some stone-blue, saltpetre, tea, pickles, salt, etc. He was very civil. I bought some things and asked for a note of them. He went to his desk again; I looked at some newspapers lying near. On the top was a circular from Smith & Elder containing ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... adjoining the dreary archway which led from one courtyard to the other, floored with great planks slimy and mouldy, to which the foot adhered, papered with a gray paper which had turned green, and which hung in rags, exuding saltpetre from the floor to the ceiling, lighted by two barred windows looking on to the courtyard, which had always to be left open on account of the smoky chimney. At the bottom of the room was the bed, and between the windows a table and two straw-bottomed ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... the whole matter of war is a thing that smites common-sense and Christianity in the face; so everything connected with it is utterly foolish, unchristian, barbarous, brutal, and savouring of the Feejee Islands, cannibalism, saltpetre, and the devil. ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... four gallons of water a pound and a half of sugar or molasses, and two ounces of saltpetre. If it is to last a month or two, use six pounds of salt. If you wish to keep it through the summer, use nine pounds of salt. Boil all together; skim and let cool. Put meat in the vessel in which it is to stand; ...
— Recipes Tried and True • the Ladies' Aid Society
... munitions of war, amianthus or incombustible crystal, divers ores of copperas, exquisite marble, alabaster, and jasper of various colors, as well as quarries of stone of chrispa and magnetic stones, muriate and carbonate of soda, saltpetre or nitrate of potassa, are, in enumeration, the mineral productions which are found in abundance in the territory of the state of Sonora, which comprehends the region from the river of Fort Monte Clarasal at the south to the Gila at the north, ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... them, and secretly working at their destruction. Its waters, filtering through the soil, were perpetually in contact with the lower courses of these buildings, and kept the foundations of the walls and the bases of the columns constantly damp: the saltpetre which the waters had dissolved in their passage, crystallising on the limestone, would corrode and undermine everything, if precautions were not taken. When the inundation was over, the subsidence ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... But Seneca would never have doubted for a moment that it was only by means of a series of experiments that a safety-lamp could be invented. Thomas Aquinas would never have thought that his barbara and baralipton would enable him to ascertain the proportion which charcoal ought to bear to saltpetre in a pound of gunpowder. Neither common sense nor Aristotle would have suffered him to ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... (KO, NO^{5}).—Saturate boiling water with commercial saltpetre, filter while hot in a beaker glass, which is to be placed in cold water, and stir while the solution is cooling. The greater part of the saltpetre will crystallize in very fine crystals. Place these crystals ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous
... was found impossible to save any provisions from the 'Monkshaven.' As far as the men are concerned, I think this is hardly to be regretted, for I am told that the salt beef with which they were supplied had lain in pickle for so many years that the saltpetre had eaten all the nourishment out of it, and had made it so hard that the men, instead of eating it, used to amuse themselves by carving it into snuff-boxes, little models of ships, &c. I should not, however, omit to mention that Captain ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... make 500 Tunne of refined Saltpetre within his Ma^{ties} dominions yearely, and continually, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 • Various
... places, where they shall excite the courage of the young warriors, and propagate the doctrine of hatred to kings, and the unity of the republic. National buildings shall be converted into barracks, public squares into workshops; the ground of the cellars will serve for the preparation of saltpetre; all saddle horses shall be placed in requisition for the cavalry; all draught horses for the artillery; fowling-pieces, pistols, swords and pikes, belonging to individuals, shall be employed in the service of the interior. The republic being but a large city, in a state of necessity, ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... Andes. Just how these mineral deposits were formed it is difficult to explain, the most plausible theory being that this desert was once the bottom of an inland sea having vast quantities of seaweed covered with sand. In the gradual decay of this substance the nitrate of soda, or "Chile saltpetre," was formed. ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... of which we shall only say, that like the early snowdrop, it comes forth in a barren season, and contents itself with foretelling the reader that choicer flowers are preparing to appear." Upon the foreign supply of gunpowder being prohibited, he proposed a plan, in the Pennsylvanian Journal, of a saltpetre association for the voluntary supply ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... entrance, detracting from its once romantic appearance. Visitors first descend a well-like pit, into which a stream falls, by a flight of steps, and then passing under a high archway, proceed along a level road, to what are called the vats, where saltpetre was once manufactured. Their blazing torches, numerous as they may be, hardly light up the vast subterranean region. From the large hall they make their way through a low narrow passage, known as the "Vale of Humility," ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... annum spent On making brain and body meeter For all the murderous intent Comprised in "villainous saltpetre!" And after—ask the Yusufzaies What ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... echoes. A lofty opening, resembling a great gate, forms the entrance to these rocky passages. Overgrown with ivy, it has rather the appearance of a bower than of a place of terror and anguish. Several of these side halls are now used as workshops by rope-makers, while in others the manufacture of saltpetre is carried on. The region around is rocky, but without displaying any high mountains. I saw numerous grottoes, some of them with magnificent entrances, which looked as though they had been cut in the rocks ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... of it,' responded Harry, also grinning at the thought of these well-known specifics. 'I would rather it should turn out saltpetre and sulphur. Then we could ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... applied to no foreign power. We are using the utmost industry in endeavoring to make saltpetre, and with daily increasing success. Our artificers are also everywhere busy in fabricating small arms, casting cannon, &c. Yet both arms and ammunition are much wanted. Any merchants, who would venture to send ships laden with those articles, might make great profit; such is the ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... had been said to depend on the West Indian and the African. In the first place, it had but very little connexion with the former at all. Its connexion with the latter was principally on account of the saltpetre which it furnished for making gunpowder. Out of nearly three millions of pounds in weight of the latter article, which had been exported in a year from this country, one-half had been sent to Africa alone; for the purposes, doubtless, of maintaining peace, and encouraging ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... "salt," or "saltpetre," is the general term for that saline dust which accumulates wherever there are mounds of brick or limestone ruins. This dust is much valued as a manure, or "top-dressing," and is so constantly dug out and carried ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... district remarkable for the quantity of grubs that yearly come out in August, spread a considerable part of the garden with a thick coating of stable litter or dry leaves and burn it, prepare the seed bed in the middle of the burnt space, and soak two pounds of saltpetre in water for one hundred square feet, and water the bed with it for at least two weeks before sowing the seed. When the seedlings have acquired about five leaves, and the ground to plant is ready, lift the young plants ...
— The Cauliflower • A. A. Crozier
... that your journal recently gave currency to the "saltpetre method" of extracting stumps, and W.H. White also recommends it in your columns. His method is to bore a hole in the stump in the fall of the year, fill in the hole with saltpetre, plug up till the following summer, then fill ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... North American colonies, on the subject of the slave trade and slavery. It is not considered necessary to burden our pages with a repetition of the whole of the accompanying resolutions. They embraced every item of foreign commodities, excepting in a few instances where medicines, saltpetre, and other necessaries, were exempted from the prohibition. In a few counties, though they condemned the slave trade, they excepted negroes, and desired to retain the privilege of procuring them. This was in the early part of the movement. When the Continental Congress came to act upon it, no ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... gentlemen meant any harm, for they provided plenty of food, and took them to bed with them. They set my daughter at liberty next day, and she spoke very handsomely of the young gentlemen, and said they had cured the skins with saltpetre, and were stuffing them when she left. But the subject was always ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... City was located, or Eldorado District organized. John Gordon was a Yankee, and should have known better. But he passed the sharp word at a time when Jan's blood-shot eyes blazed and his teeth gritted in torment. And because of this, there was a smell of saltpetre in the tent, and one lay quietly, while the other fought like a cornered rat, and refused to hang in the decent and peacable manner suggested by ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... voluntary that they become complicity Despotism natural to puissant personalities Egyptian tobacco, mixed with opium and saltpetre Have never known in the morning what I would do in the evening I no longer love you Imagine what it would be never to have been born Melancholy problem of the birth and death of love Only one thing infamous in love, and that is a falsehood Words ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Immortals of the French Academy • David Widger
... it with the help of farthings. And as respects aliquot parts, four shares among three persons are as incommensurable as a guinea is against any attempt at giving change in half-crowns. However, this was all the preservation that the horse found. No saltpetre or sugar could be had: but the frost was antiseptic. And the horse was preserved in as useful a sense as ever apricots were ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... the kingdom by this restraint, its East India interest was undoubtedly injured by it. The Company is also, and has been from a very early period, obliged to furnish the Ordnance with a quantity of saltpetre at a certain price, without any reference to the standard of the markets either of purchase or of sale. With regard to their export, they were put also under difficulties upon very mistaken notions; for they were obliged ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... not my duty"—the Captain turned away, with his hair upon the rise. "I was sent here to look for saltpetre, not spectres. No officer in His Majesty's service can be expected—Bob, ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... the Moon had such a series of destinies, as this National Convention of France? It came together to make the Constitution; and instead of that, it has had to make nothing but destruction and confusion: to burn up Catholicisms, Aristocratisms, to worship Reason and dig Saltpetre, to fight Titanically with itself and with the whole world. A Convention decimated by the Guillotine; above the tenth man has bowed his neck to the axe. Which has seen Carmagnoles danced before it, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... body, and every thing. The tailors, shoemakers,* bakers, smiths, sadlers, and many other trades, are all in requisition—carts, horses, and carriages of every kind, are in requisition—the stables and cellars are put in requisition for the extraction of saltpetre, and the houses to lodge soldiers, or to be ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... great Earthen Pots, which {104} hold each 25 or 30 pounds, and these they expose to clear Nights; and if there be any impurity remaining, it will fall to the bottom: Afterwards they break the Pots, and dry the Salt in the Sun. One might make vast quantities of Saltpetre in these parts; but the Country people feeling that We buy of it, and that the English begin to do the same, they now sell us a Maon of 6 pounds for two Rupias and a half, which we had formerly for half ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... they spent their time seeking combat and adventure, much more of the startling and romantic naturally came to pass than can be looked for in these days of the tyranny of commerce and the dominion of "villanous saltpetre." This was the more so from the fact that enchanters, magicians, demons, dragons, and all that uncanny brood, the creation of ignorance and fancy, made knighthood often no sinecure, and men's haunting belief ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... in the first naval battle of the Revolution; those of Massachusetts, Daughters of Liberty, who formed anti-tea leagues, proclaimed inherent rights, and demanded an independency in advance of the men; those of New York, who tilled the fields, and, removing their hearth-stones, manufactured saltpetre from the earth beneath, to make powder for the army; those of New Jersey, who rebuked traitors; those of Pennsylvania, who saved the army; those of Virginia, who protested against taxation without representation; those of South Carolina, who at Charleston established a ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the spluttering of a port-fire, and smelt the saltpetre of the match. I saw suddenly before me a nondescript shape on all fours like a beast, but with a man's head drooping below a tubular projection over the nape of the neck, and the gleam of a rounded mass ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... the number of cargoes that slipped through was painfully inadequate to meet the needs of the fenced-in States. Clothing, medicines, articles of necessary household use were denied to civilians. Cannon, rifles, saltpetre, and other munitions of war were withheld from the Confederate armies. While the ports of the North were bustling with foreign trade, grass grew on the cobble-stoned streets along the waterfronts of Charleston ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... describes himself as waking one morning and finding himself famous, and it is quite an ordinary fact, that a blaze may be made with a little saltpetre that will be stared at by thousands who would have thought the sunrise tedious. If we may believe his biographer, Wordsworth might have said that he awoke and found himself infamous, for the publication ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... that separate the province of Suse from that of Draha, abound in iron, copper, and lead. Ketiwa, a district on the declivity of Atlas, east of Terodant, contains also mines of lead and brimstone; and saltpetre also, of a superior quality, abounds in the neighbourhood of Terodant. In the same mountains, about fifty or sixty miles south-west of Terodant, there are mines of iron of a very malleable quality, equal to ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... had taken up his domicile within the barrel, he began to load. One charge—two charges—then a third, "as a compliment," and after this, a fourth, "for good luck." On this infernal charge—imperial, as he called it—this Vesuvius, this volcano of saltpetre, he threw half-a-dozen balls, or, if he was out of them, a handful of nails; and then he ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... purpose, at once set to work at the cannon. These were filled nearly to the muzzle with powder, and the plugs were driven with mallets tight into the muzzles. Slow matches, composed of strips of calico dipped in saltpetre, were placed in the touch holes. Then the word was given, and the whole party fell back to the gate just as the Dahomans in great numbers came running up. In less than a minute after leaving the battery twelve tremendous reports, following closely one upon ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... this, among many others:—The duration of a flame under different conditions is well worth determining. A spoonful of warm spirits of wine burnt 116 pulsations. The same spoonful of spirits of wine with addition of one-sixth saltpetre burnt 94 pulsations. With one-sixth common salt, 83; with one-sixth gunpowder, 110; a piece of wax in the middle of the spirit, 87; a piece of Kieselstein, 94; one-sixth water, 86; and with equal parts water, only 4 pulse-beats. This, ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... some difficulty in passing; it is much more spread out and subdivided, and from this circumstance, will occasion difficulty in tracking up. The banks are low and generally within reach of inundation: scarcely a village is to be seen; and Jhow is the most uniform feature. Yesterday evening saltpetre was visible in abundance on some of the higher banks, and on these Phulahi, Jhow, a Composita, and Salsola? or Chenopodium were observed. Since the 10th, the few boats seen are of different structure from those to which we had been accustomed; ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... article of defense we abound. Hemp flourishes even to rankness, so that we need not want cordage. Our iron is superior to that of other countries. Our small arms equal to any in the world. Cannon we can cast at pleasure. Saltpetre and gunpowder we are every day producing. Our knowledge is hourly improving. Resolution is our inherent character, and courage hath never yet forsaken us. Wherefore, what is it that we want? Why is it that we hesitate? From Britain we can expect nothing but ruin. If she is once admitted ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... Nitrate of potash, or saltpetre, is an extremely expensive manure, and not a desirable one, because the nitrogen in it is in a too quickly assimilable form, and is very liable to be lost in drainage. But it might be used with effect, and ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... rationalistic spirit; indeed, we see the dawn of the inevitable day of compromise, for we now have, instead of the old argument that the divine power by one miraculous act changed Lot's wife into a salt pillar, the suggestion that she was caught in a shower of sulphur and saltpetre, covered by it, and that the result was a lump, which in a general way IS CALLED in our sacred books "a ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... Tennessee, through the energy of Governor Harris, and its Military Committee consisting of General Harding and Colonel Bailey, had at the earliest moment taken measures to supply his army by making contracts for saltpetre, to be supplied from the limestone caves, and with the Sycamore Powder Mill, not far from Nashville, which was to be enlarged and put into immediate operation. These contracts were turned over to the Confederate Government on my arrival in ...
— History of the Confederate Powder Works • Geo. W. Rains
... quantities that financiers began to consider it as a fit subject for taxation. The progress which was making in the art of war had created an unprecedented demand for the ingredients of which gunpowder is compounded. It was calculated that all Europe would hardly produce in a year saltpetre enough for the siege of one town fortified on the principles of Vauban. [157] But for the supplies from India, it was said, the English government would be unable to equip a fleet without digging up the cellars of London in order to collect the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... shoulder—is commonly a poor, underfed, sapless thing, scorched in an oven; and as for the round of beef, it has as good as disappeared—probably because it asks too much skill in the salting. Then again one's breakfast bacon; what intolerable stuff, smelling of saltpetre, has been set before me when I paid the price of the best smoked Wiltshire! It would be mere indulgence of the spirit of grumbling to talk about poisonous tea and washy coffee; every one knows that these drinks cannot be had ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... also a scoop net made of bark thread; a mockasin made of the like materials; a mat of the same materials, enveloping human bones, were found in saltpetre dirt, six feet below the surface. The net and other things mouldered on ...
— Prehistoric Textile Art of Eastern United States • William Henry Holmes
... tangled vines. At the top, is a perennial fountain of sweet and cool water, which trickles down continually from the centre of the arch, through the pendent foliage, and is caught in a vessel below. The entrance of this wide arch is somewhat obstructed by a large mound of saltpetre, thrown up by workmen engaged in its manufacture, during the last war. In the course of their excavations, they dug up the bones of a gigantic man; but, unfortunately, they buried them again, without any memorial to mark the spot. They have been sought for by the curious and scientific, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... trip in half an hour; The Lowell cars ran forty miles Before they checked the power; Roll brimstone soon became a drug, And loco-focos fell; All asked for ice, but everywhere Saltpetre ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... sportsmen become dismally lengthened on finding that their fox has been "gathered unto his fathers" by means of hot lead and that villainous saltpetre "digged out of the bowels of the harmless earth"; some few, indeed, there are who are bold enough to declare that the pack has actually made a meal of a hare, and that their fox is snugly earthed in the neighbouring cover. However, as there are no "reliquias Danaum," ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... unless it will yield somewhat to eat, no use for patriotism unless it can be made to pay. When we concluded to protect our citizens from Weylerian savagery, instead of sending a warship to Havana to read the riot act if need be in villainous saltpetre we had our ambassador crawling about the European courts humbly begging permission of the powers, and as we got no permission we did no protecting. When the church people elect me president of this Republic I'll ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... shire of England, generally quarries of hard stone, chalk, and flint: these be commodities honorable and not feigned, being of such estimation that France, nor other realms, may well forbear; and as for saltpetre, there is sufficient made in England to furnish our turn for the wars. Also we have hot fountains or bathes, which you nor no other realms christened have."—Sign. L. v. rev. If ancient GILDAS speak the truth, Great Britain was no contemptible place twelve hundred ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... metal in Maranham, they have never been worked; but some saltpetre-works have been established there. There are mineral and medicinal waters in some districts; but I believe they have not been analyzed: in short, little attention has hitherto been paid to any thing but the woods, and the growth of coffee, cotton, and sugar; in ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... well as the little yard behind, which was covered with his workshops and warehouses; the small remaining space being taken up by the porter's lodge and the passage entry in the middle. The staircase walls were half rotten with damp and covered with saltpetre to such a degree that the house seemed to be stricken ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... I started for the saltpetre-works, a distance of fourteen leagues. Having ascended the steep coast-mountains by a zigzag sandy track, we soon came in view of the mines of Guantajaya and St. Rosa. These two small villages are placed at the very mouths of the mines; ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... the most productive spots for his plantations. When he desired muslin, calico, and camel's-hair shawls for his family, he put his finger on India; and when he called for those great staples of commerce, indigo, saltpetre, jute, flax, and linseed, India sent them at his bidding. When he required coffee, he found Ceylon a Spice Island, and at his demand it furnished him with an annual supply of sixty millions of pounds. He required ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... spring, in summer time, stops at certain periods and resumes its issue from under the rock, eight or ten times in a day. Further up in the mountain, above the spring, is a large cavern where the people sometimes collect saltpetre; but it is more abundant in a cavern ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... appropriately called work-stuff, not only because it is stuff which is easily made to yield work in the physical sense, but because a good deal of work in the economical sense has contributed to its production. Labour was necessary to collect, transport, and purify the raw sulphur and saltpetre; to cut wood and convert it into powdered charcoal; to mix these ingredients in the right proportions; to give the mixture the proper grain, and so on. The powder [149] once formed part of the stock, or capital, of a powder-maker: and it is not only certain natural bodies which are collected ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
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