"Nitre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... impregnate the Air about us, with such Malignant Salts, as meeting with the Salt of our Microcosm, shall immediately cast us into that Fermentation and Putrefaction, which will utterly dissolve All the Vital Tyes within us; Ev'n as an Aqua Fortis, made with a conjunction of Nitre and Vitriol, Corrodes what it Siezes upon. And when the Divel has raised those Arsenical Fumes, which become Venomous. Quivers full of Terrible Arrows, how easily can he shoot the deleterious Miasms into those Juices or Bowels of Men's Bodies, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... are the words which Worcester and the English dictionaries spell re, while Webster, the Century, and the Standard prefer er:Calibre, centre, litre, lustre, maneuvre (I. maneuver), meagre, metre, mitre, nitre, ochre, ombre, piastre, sabre, sceptre, sepulchre, sombre, ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... not much diminished: however, we knew every hour must lessen them, and I only waited for F——'s paroxysm of fever to subside about mid-day to send him off to Christchurch. I had exhausted my simple remedies, consisting of a spoonful of sweet spirits of nitre and a little weak brandy and water and did not think it right to let things go on in this way without advice: he was so weak he could hardly mount his horse; indeed he had to be fairly lifted on the old quiet station hack I have before mentioned with ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... contains potassium and calcium combined with mineral acids. The fresh juice affords thirty per cent., and the dried herb three per cent. of nitrate of potash. The stems and leaves supply much saline mucilage, which, when boiled and cooled, likewise deposits nitre and common salt. These crystals, when ignited, will burn with a succession of small sparkling explosions, to the great delight of the schoolboy. And it is to such saline qualities the wholesome, invigorating effects and the specially refreshing properties of the Borage ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... bats had harbored and died here from time immemorial, that more than a hundred acres of the earthy floor of the cave had, from their decomposing remains, become impregnated with nitre; and during the years 1812 to 1814, a party of saltpetre-makers took up their residence here. They made great vats in the cave, in which they lixiviated the impregnated earth, and by wooden pipes conveyed it to a place where they boiled the water ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... violently inflammable substance, supposed to have been a compound of naphtha, sulphur, and nitre, which was hurled against the enemy in battle. As it was first used in 673, in the siege of Constantinople, Browning is guilty of an ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... digestion. This menstruum (solvent) dissolved a quantity of luna cornua (horn silver), though some black powder remained undissolved. The powder having been washed was, for the greater part, dissolved by a pure acid of nitre (nitric acid), which, by the operation, acquired volatility. This solution I precipitated again by means of sal-ammoniac into horn silver. Hence it follows that the blackness which the luna cornua acquires ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... macerating three or four drachms of the lichen in cool spring water, assisting, perhaps, the solvent action of the water by minute quantities of common salt, nitre, quicklime, sulphate of copper or iron, or similar re-agents. If these means failed, after a sufficient length of time had been allowed for the development of color, he digested a fresh portion of the pulverised lichen in water, containing small quantities of sal-ammoniac and quicklime [in ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... but for my own Part, I am pleased most with those Passages in this Description which carry in them a greater Measure of Probability, and are such as might possibly have happened. Of this kind is his first mounting in the Smoke that rises from the Infernal Pit, his falling into a Cloud of Nitre, and the like combustible Materials, that by their Explosion still hurried him forward in his Voyage; his springing upward like a Pyramid of Fire, with his laborious Passage through that Confusion of Elements which ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... coast. When I mentioned this circumstance to colonel Gordon, at the Cape of Good Hope, he wondered at it; and owned, that, in his excursions into the interior parts of Africa, he had never experienced anything to match it: he attributed its production to large beds of nitre, which he said must exist in ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... pouring a strong spirit of Nitre on the rectified Oyl of the Butter of Antimony, and then distilling off all the liquor, that would come over, &c. This Menstruum (called by the Author Peracutum) being put to highly refined Gold, destroyed its Texture, and produced, after the method prescribed in the book, a true Silver, ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... pioneer contribution on gunpowder analysis the charcoal of the powder is often called "oxid of carbon." In referring to the separation of potassium and sodium it is recommended to precipitate out the first in the form of tartrate. Naturally, nitre itself comes in for serious thought and the explosibility of the mixture of charcoal, nitre and sulphur arrests the author's attention, for he ...
— James Cutbush - An American Chemist, 1788-1823 • Edgar F. Smith
... had made no mistake. And Maurice had really drained—to the dregs—the bottle of old hair tonics, dead catsups, syrups of undesirable preserves, condemned extracts of vanilla and lemon, decayed chocolate, ex-essence of beef, mixed dental preparations, aromatic spirits of ammonia, spirits of nitre, alcohol, arnica, quinine, ipecac, sal volatile, nux vomica and licorice water— with traces ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... stepped out into the corridor, walked along the carpeted flagstones, and cast a practiced eye around him as he walked. These old castles were difficult to keep clean, and my lord the Count was fussy about nitre collecting in the seams between the stones of the walls. All appeared quite in order, which was a good thing. My lord the Count had been making a night of it last evening, and that always made him the more peevish in the morning. Though he ...
— The Eyes Have It • Gordon Randall Garrett
... yet all this was done merely for mechanical amusement, and not for any personal pecuniary advantage. While Watt was making experiments as to the proper substances to be carved and drilled, he also desired Murdock to make similar experiments. "The nitre," he said in one note, "seems to do harm; the fluor composition seems the best and hardest. Query, what would some calcined pipe-clay do? If you will calcine some fire-clay by a red heat and pound it,—about a pound,—and send it to me, I ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... pied du cone, je n'ai vu qu'un terrain compose de ces debris, et cultive en vignes. Mais apres l'avoir depasse, j'ai trouve la coupe verticale d'une colline a couches pierreuses, si reguliers, que je les ai prises au premier coup d'oeil pour de la pierre a chaux. L'esprit de nitre m'a detrompe: c'est une pierre sableuse tres compacte, dont les couches, qui n'ont souvent que quelques pouces d'epaisseur, s'elevent par une pente insensible vers le cone volcanique qu'elle recouvrent de ce cote la sans aucune apparence de desordre. Ces couches qui sont visiblement des ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... was not inviting; it exhibited too plainly the true wilderness in its sternest aspect; but perhaps the knowledge that in the bosom of the vast plain before me there was not one drop of water but was bitter as nitre, and undrinkable as urine, prejudiced me against it, The hunter might consider it a paradise, for in its depths were all kinds of game to attract his keenest instincts; but to the mere traveller it had a stern outlook. Nearer, however, to the base ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... dark blue precipitate with ferrous salts, but a dark green or slate-colored precipitate. It is then removed from the fire, and left to crystallize, whereupon it yields a large quantity of crystals of nitre, and more or less oxamide. The strongly-colored mother liquid is then neutralized with carbonate of potash or soda, according to the salt to be prepared, and the solution is boiled, whereupon it generally deposits a green or brown precipitate, which ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous
... rides Audacious; but, that seat soon failing, meets A vast vacuity. All unawares, Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb-down he drops Ten thousand fathom deep, and to this hour Down had been falling, had not, by ill chance, The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud, Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him As many miles aloft. That fury stayed— Quenched in a boggy Syrtis, neither sea, Nor good dry land—nigh foundered, on he fares, Treading the crude consistence, half on foot, Half flying; behoves him now both oar and sail. As when a gryphon through the wilderness With winged course, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... them "the universal artist." He told us "he had been thirty years employing his thoughts for the improvement of human life." He had two large rooms full of wonderful curiosities, and fifty men at work. Some were condensing air into a dry tangible substance, by extracting the nitre, and letting the aqueous or fluid particles percolate; others softening marble, for pillows and pin-cushions; others petrifying the hoofs of a living horse, to preserve them from foundering. The artist himself was at that time busy upon two great designs; the first, to sow land ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... when compelled. Most of the churches, the great Coffee-House, the Library, were closed. Of four daily newspapers, only one continued to be published. Some people constantly smoked tobacco,—even women and children, did so; others chewed garlic; others exploded gunpowder; others burned nitre or sprinkled vinegar; many assiduously whitewashed every surface within their reach; some carried tarred rope in their hands, or bags of camphor round their necks; others never ventured abroad without a handkerchief or a sponge wet with vinegar at their ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... betony, feverfew, mallows, linseed, juniper-berries, cumminseed, aniseed, melilot, and add to it half an ounce of diacatholicon; two drachms of hiera piera, an ounce each of honey and oil and a drachm and a half of sol. nitre. The patient must abstain from salt, acid and ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... it myself, as I want some drugs as well." I bought some nitre, mercury, flower of sulphur, and a small brush, and on my return said, "I must have a little of your——, this liquid is indispensable, and it must be ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... and halted on the north, after which we had a violent gust about seven o'clock. One of the hunters saw in a pond to the north which we passed yesterday a number of young swans. We saw a large rat, and killed a wolf. Another of our men had a stroke of the sun; he was bled, and took a preparation of nitre which ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... properly filled and well secured against the penetration of the air, and exposed to solar rays, will ascend to the skies and sometimes suffer a natural change. And if the eggs of the larger description of swans, or leather balls stitched with fine thongs, be filled with nitre, the purest sulphur quicksilver, or kindred materials which rarify by their caloric energy, and if they externally resemble pigeons, they will easily be ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... he had established himself. "Or has not the chief got a wishing carpet? Or can't you ride to Gallipoli? Here are some excellent white-tailed mules, good enough for Pindar, whom Colvocoressis has just brought in from the monastery. 'Transportation for one!' Is there anything to be brought back? Nitre, powder, lead, junk, hard-tack, mules, horses, pigs, polenta, or olla podrida, or other of the stores ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... on these he had laid tons of rough saltpetre, in 200 lb. gunny-bags: and was now mashing it to music, bags and all. His gang of fifteen, naked to the waist, stood in line, with huge wooden beetles called commanders, and lifted them high and brought them down on the nitre in cadence with true nautical power and unison, singing as follows, with a ponderous bump on the first ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... forty smaller bombards (bombardelles) placed three, four, or even six on each waggon; twelve with ordinary pieces of artillery; as many more for the service of twelve big guns; thirty-seven carts of iron balls; three with gunpowder; and finally five laden with nitre, darts, and bullets. Splendid artillery of most excellent workmanship and great power escorted by two thousand men under arms, without mentioning the companies who marched ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... asplay; Lilies flopping, Washed-out roses; Eaves dropping, Red noses; Pools, splashes, Spouts, spirts; Swollen sashes. Gutters, squirts; Limp curls, Splashed hose; Pretty girls, Damp shows; Piled grates, Cold shivers; Aching pates, Sluggish livers; Morn cruel, Eve a biter; Hot gruel, Sweet nitre; Voice a creaky Cracked cadenza, Face "peaky," INFLUENZA!!! Gloom growing, Glum, glummer Noses (and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, 13 June 1891 • Various
... wasn't gunpowder, uncle," cried Tom, "it couldn't be. I know what gunpowder's made of—nitre, brimstone, and charcoal; and besides, we had ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... minstrel's harp, and a miser's chest, A hermit's cowl, and a baron's crest, Jewels of lustre, robes of price, Tomes of heresy, loaded dice, And golden cups of the brightest wine That ever was pressed from the Burgundy vine. There was a perfume of sulphur and nitre As he came at ...
— English Satires • Various
... above all other things, Nature has given a dissolving faculty. Therefore the fig-tree sends forth a hot and sharp spirit, which cuts and boils the flesh of the bird. The very same thing may be effected by placing the flesh upon a heap of corn, or near nitre; the heat will produce the same that the fig-tree did. Now it may be made manifest that wheat is naturally hot, in that wine, put into a hogshead and placed among ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... was a young Scotchman named Thomas Melvill, who died in 1753, at the age of twenty-seven. He studied the spectrum of burning spirits, into which were successively introduced sal ammoniac, potash, alum, nitre, and sea-salt, and observed the singular predominance, under almost all circumstances, of a particular shade of yellow light, perfectly definite in its degree of refrangibility[368]—in other words, ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... o'clock. You may take another dose of the nitre, and gargle your throat well with a little of it. Are you ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... belongs to another. It is my likeness if it be his glass. And a narrative that is true to the Varieties of Life is every Man's Novel, no matter from what shores, by what rivers, by what bays, in what pits, were extracted the sands and the silex, the pearlash, the nitre, and quicksilver which form its materials; no matter who the craftsman who fashioned its form; no matter who the vendor that sold, or the customer who bought: still, if I but recognize some trait of myself, 't is my likeness that ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... he gave oftener than any other, was nitre; which he ordered in doses of twenty or thirty grains to adults, and of three grains to infants. Measles, colics, sciatica, headache, giddiness, and many other ailments, all found themselves treated, and I trust ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... muskets, which are matchlocks, are made in the country. They are very dexterous in throwing the lance. Gunpowder is also manufactured there; the brimstone is brought from Fas; the charcoal they make; and he believes they prepare the nitre.[83] Their arrows are feathered and barbed; the bows are all cross-bows, with triggers; the arrows, 20 to 40 in a quiver, are made of hides, and hang on the left side. The king never goes to war in person. The soldiers have a peculiar dress; their heads are ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... couch. He struck flintsparks upon a rag steeped in nitre, and waved it to a flame, and kindled a lanthorn. He flung his own mantle upon the bed and went forth in his shirt. The storm raged terribly; the stars were dancing in high heaven. He came to the house of the Chief Leech and beat ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... each rustling tree, Harlot thou sprawlest! Yet a noble vine did I plant thee, 21 Wholly true seed; How could'st thou change to a corrupt,(155) A wildling grape? Yea, though thou scour thee with nitre, 22 And heap to thee lye, Ingrained is thy guilt before Me, Rede of the Lord, thy God.(156) How sayest thou, "I'm not defiled, 23 Nor gone after the Baals." Look at thy ways in the Valley, And own thy deeds! ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith |
