"Percussion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... an analogy with the four voices of a vocal choir—soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass); but to go into this might make the exposition confusing. The fourth "choir" (here the apology to the lexicographers must be repeated with much humility and earnestness) consists of the instruments of percussion—the kettle-drums, big drum, cymbals, triangle, bell chime, etc. (sometimes spoken of collectively in the United ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... armies of the Confederate States, then in arms against the Federal Government. What is the reason, our Government asked, that these gentle and unwarlike inhabitants of the Bahamas have so suddenly developed such an enormous appetite for percussion caps, rifles, cannon, and other instruments of warfare? The answer, of course, lay upon the surface; the cargoes were intended for reshipment into the Southern States, and they were, in fact, immediately ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... by toy pistols, percussion-caps, and rusty nails and tools, if neglected, often lead to serious results from blood-poisoning. A hot flaxseed poultice may be needed for several days. Keep such wounds clean by washing or syringing them twice a day with hot antiseptics, which are poisons to bacteria and kill them or ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... William of Ipres, or far earlier, he began; and has come down safe so far. Catapult has given place to cannon, pike has given place to musket, iron mail-shirt to coat of red cloth, saltpetre ropematch to percussion-cap; equipments, circumstances, have all changed and again changed; but the human battle-engine, in the inside of any or of each of these, ready still to do battle, stands there, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... of her sojourn with Valentine, it was discovered that her total deafness did not entirely exclude her from every effect of sound. She was acutely sensitive to the influence of percussion—that is to say (if so vague and contradictory an expression may be allowed), she could, under certain conditions, feel the sounds that she could not hear. For example, if Mr. Blyth wished to bring her to his side when they were together in the painting-room, and when ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... women's gowns, the whole pavement of the church was covered with a fairly representative collection of cast-off kitchen utensils—old kettles, broken cake-tins, frying-pans, saucepans—all calculated to emit dismal sounds under percussion. Scattered among these were ox-bells, rook-rattles, a fog-horn or two, and a tin trumpet from Liskeard fair. Explanation is simple: the outraged feelings of the parish were to be avenged by a shal-lal as bride and bridegroom left the church. Ruby knew nothing of the storm brewing for her, but ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to "Spectrum," page 358, of last volume, I will be brief. In his third paragraph he claims that he has merely suggested that friction and percussion may often be one and the same thing; and immediately claims that in the case of the polished button rubbing a planed pine board, the force which overcomes and levels the undulations of the wood, is percussion, and that percussion is also the cause of the heat; the microscopic hills and hollows ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... breechloaders of the Prussians, firing two rounds a minute with a percussion shell that broke into about 30 fragments, did much to defeat the French (1870-71). At Sedan, the greatest artillery battle fought prior to 1914, the Prussians used 600 guns to smother the French army. So thoroughly did these guns do their work that the Germans annihilated the enemy at the ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... following in rapid succession, until it seemed that the mined earth cascading upward in the darkness was the bombardment of scores of cannon. The flames of the torches and the falling snow tossed and whirled at the percussion of air. Showers of clay rained upon the earth. ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... not immediately elect to lose both his hearing and sense of smell rather than to be blind. Since he who loves his sight is deprived of the beauty of the world and all created things, and the deaf man loves only the sound made by the percussion of the air, which is an insignificant thing in ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... was picturesque, if not quite according to European notions. Their heads were bare, except such covering as their plaited hair afforded. They wore long white robes, embroidered with scarlet, and the greater number possessed firearms, either matchlocks or double-barrelled percussion guns, some even had double-barrelled rifles, many had pistols, and all wore long, crooked swords on the right side. A comparative few were armed with sword, spear, and shield. The cavalry, to the number of about 400 men, were mounted on shaggy ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... were in his hand he took me to our gun-room and gave me a quite unneeded lesson in the art of loading a gun—first so much powder, then a wad well rammed down with the old obsolete ramrod; then so much shot and a second wad and ramming down; then a percussion cap on the nipple. He then led the way to the plantation, and finding two wild pigeons sitting together in a tree, he ordered me to fire. I fired, and one fell, quite dead, and that completed my education, for now he declared he ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... and going to that which communicated with the apartments of the two sisters, he double-locked it. Having done this, he hastened to the alcove in which stood the bed and taking down a pair of loaded pistols, he carefully removed the percussion caps, and, unable to repress a deep sigh, restored the weapons to the place in which he had found them. Then, as if on second thoughts, he took down an Indian dagger with a very sharp blade, and ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... energy. The doctrine of the conservation and correlation of forces has been illustrated in various ways, but nothing has so powerfully contributed to its establishment as the investigation of the relations of heat to mechanical force. Percussion and friction produce heat. A cold bullet, struck upon an anvil by a cold sledge-hammer, is heated. Iron plates, ground against each other by water-power, have yielded a large and constant supply of heat for warming the air of a factory in winter; while water inclosed in a box, which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... skin, and a great brazen warming-pan hangs near the door. There is no ceiling properly so called. These old houses were always built with a huge beam, and you can see the boards of the floor above, which are merely whitewashed. A fowling-piece, once a flint-lock, now converted to the percussion cap system, hangs against the beam, and sometimes dried herbs may be seen there too. The use of herbs is, however, going out of date. In the evening when the great logs of wood smoulder upon the enormous hearth and cast flickering shadows on the walls, revealing the cat slumbering ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... was gallant, but as no garrisons can exist without water, Colonel Mulligan was forced to capitulate. It afterward became known that Price's army had almost exhausted its stock of percussion-caps—it having less than two thousand when the surrender was made. General Fremont was highly censured by the Press and people for not re-enforcing the garrison, when it was known that Price was moving upon Lexington. One journal in St. Louis, that took occasion to comment ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... of the armies of the Confederacy. The rifles were of the caliber .54, known as Mississippi rifles, except those at Richmond taken from Harper's Ferry, which were of the new-model caliber .58; the muskets were the old flint lock, caliber .69, altered to percussion. There were a few boxes of sabers at each arsenal, and some short artillery-swords. A few hundred holster-pistols were scattered about. There ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... look of eager curiosity. By the side of the shaggy and brutish monsters before me, it seemed like some lovely young girl wandering near a den of robbers or a nest of bearded pirates. The buffalo looked uglier than ever. "Here goes for another of you," thought I, feeling in my pouch for a percussion cap. Not a percussion cap was there. My good rifle was useless as an old iron bar. One of the wounded bulls had not yet fallen, and I waited for some time, hoping every moment that his strength would fail ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... thrust it into the loops, threw the piece muzzle forward, opened the pan to see that it was full of powder, shut it down again, and made a careful examination of the flint. For these were the days long prior to the birth of the copper percussion-cap, and plenty of preliminaries had to be gone through before the musket ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... pistol stuck in his shawl belt was of the best, strongest, and most hard-hitting type. Old- fashioned, indeed, so far that it was not breech-loading; for he had considered that if he lost his cartridges, or spent them, his weapon would become a useless lump of iron, whereas percussion caps, powder, and ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... calamities, he was afflicted with another still more severe—with deafness almost total; but though he was now excluded from all communication with the external world, yet his mind still grappled with the material universe, and while he was studying the force of percussion, and preparing for a continuation of his "Dialogues on Motion," he was attacked with fever and palpitation of the heart, which, after continuing two months, terminated fatally on the 8th of January 1642, in the 78th year of ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... gunsmith, the harness-maker, the blacksmith,—all trades and occupations have been employed. There are saddles, bridles, knapsacks, canteens, dippers, plates, knives, stoves, kettles, tents, blankets, medicines, drums, swords, pistols, guns, cannon, powder, percussion-caps, bullets, shot, shells, wagons,—everything. ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... and an artist. The artist, as modest as he was odd, showed me how he laid on the paint on his pictures, asked after my own pursuits, and showed a friendly spirit which enchanted me. With a ramrod for a rest, he prosecuted his work vigorously, and afterwards asked me to examine a percussion lock on his gun, a novelty to me at the time. He snapped some caps, and on my remarking that he would frighten his birds, he exclaimed, 'Devil take the birds, there are more of them in the market.' He then loaded his gun, and wishing to show me that he was a marksman, fired at ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... vessels that's just went out," was the answer. "But it'll be Nassau or Havana, one of the two. I'll take cotton out—cotton is king, you know, and must be had to keep all them working people in England from starving—and bring medicine back. Medicine is getting skurse and high-priced already. And percussion caps. They're the things you can make money on. Why, I have heard it said that there wasn't enough gun caps in the Confederacy to fight a battle with till Captain Semmes made that tower of his through the Northern States, buying powder and bullets, and making ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... I did not realise what was happening. I saw the Duke's eyes contract, and the muscles of his mouth drawn down, and, at the same time, a tense upward movement of his whole body. Then, suddenly, the strain undone: a downward dart of the head, a loud percussion. Thrice the Duke sneezed, with a sound that was as the bursting of the dams of body and soul together; then ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... half-protected boats he entered the mouth of the Mississippi below New Orleans. The bottom of the river bristled with torpedoes—kegs filled with powder, and surrounded with long prongs that rested upon percussion caps. When a ship struck a prong it exploded the cap and the powder, and again and again a boat went to the bottom. The forts that protected the Mississippi thirty miles below the city were sheathed with sand bags, and mounted a hundred guns; while a boom ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... could be hauled back into the boat after being darted at a whale. To prepare this weapon for use, the barrel was loaded with a charge of powder and a bomb similar to those used in the shoulder-guns, the point of which just protruded from the muzzle. An ordinary percussion cap was placed upon the nipple, and the trigger cocked by placing the trigger-rod in position. The harpoon, with the line attached, was firmly set into the socketed flanges prepared for it, and the whole arrangement was then ready to be darted at the whale ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... kept there to wrap bullets in before ramming them in the barrel, he placed it in the "pan" of his rifle. Does the reader know what the "pan" of a rifle is? If not he knows nothing of flintlock guns, and I must explain. Before the invention of percussion caps, guns were provided with a little groove-shaped trough by the side of the powder chamber. From this "pan" as it was called, a little hole led into the charge. Over the pan fitted a piece of steel ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... tone-character, the quality of its note which touches the heart in its own peculiar way, moving it to enthusiasm or bringing it within the easy reach of awe, fear, and courage. Again, while, except in the orchestra, the drum and other instruments of percussion may require no exact pitch, still this does not necessarily determine their effectiveness. The very depth and gravity of its pitch, made pervasive by its wealth of overtones, give to this primitive instrument a weird hold ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... Flintlock, J. Percussion: aged 87; war veteran and pensioner; born, blank; educated, blank; at outbreak of Civil War sprang to arms; both sides; sprang Union first; entered beef contract department of army of U. S.; fought at Chicago, Omaha, and leading ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... mot, that jutted out into the prairie. Here I concluded it was best to hang up for the night. I was soaking wet—hungry and wolfish enough. My utter desperation induced me to work for an hour with some percussion caps, powder, and a piece of greased tow linen, to get a blaze of fire, Ingins or no Ingins. I began to wish I was a Camanche myself, or that the red devils would surround me, give me one bite and a drink, ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... paralyzed or withered. Motion, use, are the law of life, and the frog of the horse's hoof with a function as essential and well-defined as any portion of his body is subject to the general law. Without use it dries, hardens, and becomes a shelly excrescence upon a foot, benumbed by the percussion of heavy iron upon hard roads. This is a loss nature struggles in vain to repair, the horse begins to fail at once. The elastic step, which in a state of nature spurned the dull earth, becomes heavy and stiff, and the unhappy brute experiences ...
— Rational Horse-Shoeing • John E. Russell
... number of the Third Kentucky were left in the rear because arms could not be gotten for them. In November one or two regiments of the Kentucky brigade were given the Belgian in place of the flint-lock musket, and in December flint-lock guns, altered to percussion locks, were given the other regiments of the brigade. Proper accouterments were as scarce as guns. Cartridge-boxes, knapsacks, canteens, when they could be gotten at all, were very inferior. By great industry and effort, a considerable quantity of ammunition had been prepared and ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... right, along our lines was heard the thud, thud, of the ramrods, and percussion-cap boxes were slid around the waist to be handy. Penhallow and others drew their pistols. The cannon were now fully replaced, the regimental flags unrolled, and on the front line, long motionless, the trefoil guidons of the two divisions of the Second Corps fluttered feebly. The long row of skirmishers ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... Ordnance of the United States Army to Secretary of War Holt, of date, January 15, 1861, shows that, commencing in 1859, under orders from Secretary of War Floyd, 115,000 muskets were transferred from the Springfield (Mass.) and Watervliet (N. Y.) arsenals to arsenals South; and, under like orders, other percussion muskets and rifles were similarly transferred, all of which were seized, together with many cannon and other material of war, by the ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... when Fritz got the better of me. In my explorations I came across a path through his barbed wire which was evidently the place where his patrols came out. I thought I would provide a surprise-party for him, so I planted some percussion bombs and put a small Union Jack in the centre. In the morning the Union Jack was gone and a German flag in its place. Everybody from the brigadier down rubbed it in that Fritz ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... about to rise to his feet when it chanced that his eyes, glancing into a corner, lighted on something tiny and metallic in the crevice between the white paper and the side bars of the grate. Wondering what it was, he succeeded in getting it out with his finger and thumb. It was a percussion cap. ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... wheel-lock, wound up like a clock, and having a piece of iron pyrite, and later, a piece of flint, for producing ignition. The wheel-lock was superseded by the trigger and the hammer, still with flint. The percussion cap, invented by the Scotchman, Alexander Forbes, was introduced about 1820 (“Notes on Arms and Armour,” by C. Boutell). The pistol found at High-hall is inscribed with the two French words “Shermand Brevete” (patentee). The earliest pistol preserved in the United Service Museum is supposed ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... throws a Whitehead torpedo, carrying a charge of four and one-half pounds of explosive gelatine; the effective force of this charge is equal to that of nine pounds of dynamite, No. 1. The charge explodes, on striking, by means of a percussion fuse, and steadiness of flight is secured by means of a vane. The propelling force is a charge of seven ounces of smokeless powder. The gun is pointed in the same manner as a mortar, and fired in the same manner as a field-piece. During ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... guns from the battlements crashed out anew, and although their fire was not nearly so accurate as that from the rebel pieces, yet, in the long run, weight of metal was bound to tell; and, while the shot was solid and had not therefore the devastating effect of the percussion shell fired from the war-ships, it began to be apparent that some of them at least were getting home, and that their effect was already becoming very galling to the rebels. The latter, now harassed almost beyond endurance by the combined fire of the fort and ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... is a snow-white crystalline powder, which is partially decomposed by water, and slowly oxidized by long exposure to the air, or by heating to 100 deg.. By rapid heating to a higher temperature, as well as by percussion and friction, it explodes violently, giving off a shower of sparks. This compound is also formed when a fine spray of nitric acid (sp. gr. 1.20) is thrown upon a surface of tin or solder. It is also formed when tin or solder is exposed to the action of a solution of copper ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... could certainly have fabricated a percussion cap. In default of fulminate, he could easily obtain a substance similar to guncotton, since he had azotic acid at his disposal. This substance, pressed in a cartridge, and introduced among the nitro-glycerine, would burst by means of a ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... slight "voluntary" deflection from the straight line, atoms are now brought into contact with each other; "they strike against each other, and by the percussion new movements and new complications arise"—"movements from high to low, from low to high, and horizontal movements to and fro, in virtue of this reciprocal percussion." The atoms "jostling about, of their own accord, in infinite modes, were often brought together confusedly, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... the Council Office yesterday on another patent case, a gun—Baron Heurteloup, the famous lithotritic doctor and inventor—which was clicked off for the information of their Lordships. Since this Patent Bill, we have got very noisy between percussion guns and pianofortes. I walked away with Lyndhurst to hear what he had to say. He said that he understood Peel was come to town with the intention of being very active, but that the Duke talked of staying at Strathfieldsaye till after Easter; and if the Duke did ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... loaded and shotted, fore and aft, and none knew their temper better than he. With steady hand, made strong by sudden hope, the old gunner seized a priming-wire and picked the cartridge of one of the quarter guns; then he took from his pocket a percussion cap, fixed it in its place, and set back the hammer of the ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... my old rifle, for it weighed, all complete and including the shoulder strap, less than six pounds. It had a plain blue cylindrical barrel, gauged to take a half-inch spherical bullet with three drachms of powder, was fitted with a nipple for percussion caps, and provided with a fixed sight for a range of one hundred yards and two flap sights for two hundred and five hundred yards respectively, the latter being regarded in those days as an exceptionally long range. Also, with a normal pull upon the trigger of six ounces, it was ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... for me—I know it, To crack my own trumpet up and blow it; But it is the best, and time will show it. There was Mrs. F. So very deaf, That she might have worn a percussion cap, And been knocked on the head without hearing it snap, Well, I sold her a horn, and the very next day She heard from her husband at Botany Bay! Come—eighteen shillings—that's very low, You'll save the money as shillings go, And I never knew so bad ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... blanket tables percussion tables are sometimes used, to which a jerking motion is given against the flow of the water and pulp, and by this means the heavier minerals are gathered towards the upper part of the table, and are from thence removed from time to time as ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... absolutely correct system (which even at the present time is misunderstood by some German orchestras) of spreading the string quartette over the whole orchestra. This system further consisted in preventing the brass and percussion instruments from culminating in one point (and drowning each other) by dividing them on both sides, and by placing the more delicate wind instruments at a judicious distance from each other, thus forming a chain between the violins. Even some great and celebrated orchestras ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... pound of cotton behind our army; that four cents would take it to Boston, where they could receive thirty cents in gold. The bait was too tempting, and it spread like fire, when here they discovered that salt, bacon, powder, fire-arms, percussion-caps, etc., etc., were worth as much as gold; and, strange to say, this traffic was not only permitted, but encouraged. Before we in the interior could know it, hundreds, yea thousands of barrels of salt and millions of dollars ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... Each substance has its peculiar ring. We can tell the more or less perfect structure of metals by their vibrations, by the answer which they give. Gold rings differently from tin, wood rings differently from stone; and different sounds are produced according to the nature of each percussion. It may be the same with man, the most highly organised of nature's work." (Max Muller as above, translating from Heyse.) Max Muller's repudiation of this theory was, however, not very whole-hearted for he proceeds later in the same argument: "Heyse's theory, which I neither ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... at a time when the Delaware was filled with British shipping, that Bushnell set adrift upon its swift-flowing tide a number of small kegs, filled with gunpowder, and provided with percussion apparatus, so that contact with any object would explode them. The kegs were started on their voyage at night. But Bushnell had miscalculated the distance they had to travel; so that, instead of reaching the British fleet under cover of darkness, they arrived early ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... "policeman's truncheon" were the most important of these, all of them so-called because of their resemblance to the articles for which they were named. The first three were exploded by a time-fuse set for from three to five seconds. The fourth was a percussion bomb, which had long cloth streamers fastened to the handle to insure greater accuracy in throwing. The men became remarkably accurate at a distance of thirty to forty yards. Old cricketers were especially good, for the bomb must be thrown overhand, ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... best weapons were made by a noted Philadelphia gunsmith named Derringer, who gave his name to a short pistol of his invention to be carried in the trouser's pocket for use in street fights. Some of the dueling pistols were inlaid with gold, and they all had flint-locks, as percussion caps had not ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... a lady in Lawrence, who, in opening her work-basket, accidentally let fall a small pistol. She smiled and blushed, and presently acknowledged, that, when she had first pulled the trigger experimentally, six months before, she had shut her eyes and screamed, although there was only a percussion-cap to explode. Yet it afterwards appeared that she was one of the few women who remained in their houses, to protect them by their presence, when the town was entered by the Missourians,—and also one of the still smaller number who ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... attendant, and sent him off. He admired our clothes extremely,* [All Tibetans admire sad value English broad-cloth beyond any of our products. Woollen articles are very familiar to them, and warm clothing is one of the first requisites of life.] and then my percussion gun, the first he had seen; but above all he admired rum and water, which he drank with intense relish, leaving a mere sip for his comrades at the bottom of his little wooden cup, which they emptied, and afterwards licked ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... the oaken window-sill bright with fuchsias and geraniums, the walls adorned with an old eight-day clock, a copper warming-pan and antique trays, while over the mantel-piece was a small fowling piece, years ago reduced from flint to percussion. Upon the rafters there were half a side of bacon, bunches of dried sweet herbs, and the traditional strings of onions. The pictures consisted of four highly coloured prints of celebrated race-horses, long ago buried and forgotten. It was in this cottage that the young men ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... twice, and reached after the other sleeve. Next he tried the velvet collar, and smiled a smile of such contentment that it was plain to see that he regarded that as the daintiest thing about an overcoat. The tails went next, along with some percussion caps and cough candy, and some fig-paste from Constantinople. And then my newspaper correspondence dropped out, and he took a chance in that —manuscript letters written for the home papers. But he was treading on dangerous ground, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... came nearer. Owing to the lack of percussion caps, Pemberton had ordered his men to use their rifles sparingly, but evidently a considerable body of sharpshooters near Dick were attempting a flanking movement of some kind, and meant to carry it ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... if he were not more careful. Other facts relied upon by the prosecution were that William Habron had inquired from a gunsmith the price of some cartridges a day or two before the murder; that two cartridge percussion caps had been found in the pocket of a waistcoat given to William Habron by his employer, who swore that they could not have been there while it was in his possession; that the other constable on duty with Cock stated that a man he had seen lurking ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... during the Seven Years' War only in its more careful construction and some modifications of detail. The most important of these relates to the more rapid explosion of the charge. In 1840 the old flint-locks were generally replaced by the percussion-lock, which is simpler, is less exposed to the effects of dampness, and more quickly and surely ignites the powder. Even the ordinary regulation-musket with its bayonet was spoken of by Napoleon in his time as "the best engine of warfare ever invented by man." Since the day of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... a primitive literary gun which began as a hundred-yard flint-lock smooth-bore muzzle-loader, and in the course of forty years has acquired one notable improvement after another—percussion cap; fixed cartridge; rifled barrel; efficiency at half a mile how is it that such a gun, sufficiently good on an elephant hunt (Christian Science) from the beginning, and growing better and better all the time during forty years, has always collapsed back to its original ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Executive Committee to Colonel Charles Doane; who, in all the subsequent military operations proved himself to be a most skillful tactician and efficient commander. The great body of the force at first under his command, was infantry armed with flint-lock muskets, afterwards changed for percussion ones. There were, in addition, a company of horse; two companies of riflemen, and artillerists for two field pieces. The evening closed with a sharp drill ...
— A Sketch of the Causes, Operations and Results of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856 • Stephen Palfrey Webb
... raised the hammer to full cock, and, placing the muzzle in his mouth, he blew down the barrel, with his finger on the cap nipple, to feel if the air passed through. He naively explained to me the certainty of this mode of discovering whether a percussion arm is loaded or not. In this instance the pistol was thought to be loaded, but it was found to be only ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon
... invention in 1807, but, whether from prejudice or want of perfection in its application, no general use was made of the copper cap until it was introduced among sportsmen by Mr. Egg, in 1818, and subsequently Mr. J. Manton patented his percussion tubes for a similar purpose. The use of the copper cap in the army dates 1842, or nearly a quarter of a century after its manifest advantages had been apparent to the ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... beneath the blazing sun. The crashing thunder, the destroying hurricane, were masters in that solitude, and many long hours would pass before the end. But even thus early in the day the Germans had demonstrated the superiority of their artillery; their percussion shells had an enormous range, and exploded, with hardly an exception, on reaching their destination, while the French time-fuse shells, with a much shorter range, burst for the most part in the air and were wasted. And there was nothing left for the poor fellows exposed ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... conservatorium was opened, the programme of which might almost have satisfied a Berlioz. The department of instrumental music not only comprised sections for the usual keyed, stringed, and wind instruments, but also one for instruments of percussion. Solo and choral singing were to be taught with special regard to dramatic expression. Besides these and the theoretical branches of music, the curriculum included dancing, Polish literature, French, and Italian. After reading the programme it is superfluous to be informed that ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... FEET it may be necessary to remove the shoes and practise percussion and pressure over the region of the sole. In some forms of lameness it may be necessary to destroy the sensation in the foot by injecting cocaine along the course of the nerves that supply the foot before arriving at ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... To catch an after-dinner nap, The spirits, always on the tap, Would make a sudden rap, rap, rap, The half-spun cord of sleep to snap, (And what is life without its nap But threadbareness and mere mishap?) 338 As 'twere with a percussion cap The trouble's climax capping; It seemed a party dried and grim Of mummies had come to visit him, Each getting off from every limb Its multitudinous wrapping; Scratchings sometimes the walls ran round, The merest penny-weights of sound; Sometimes 'twas only by ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... have for their legitimate end, 'not merely PROOF, but much more, IMPRESSION.' 'For many forms are equal in signification which are differing in impression, as the difference is great in the piercing of that which is sharp, and that which is flat, though the strength of the percussion be the same; for instance, there is no man but will be a little more raised, by hearing it said, "Your enemies will be glad of this," than by hearing it said only, "This is evil for you."' But it is thus that our Gascon proceeds, whose comment ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... such fool. He is a mighty poor shot—and he knows it. Personally I believe he shuts both eyes before pulling trigger. He is armed with a long flint or percussion lock musket, whose gas-pipe barrel is bound to the wood that runs its entire length by means of brass bands, and whose effective range must be about ten yards. This archaic implement is known as a "trade gun" and has the single merit ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... in white enameling of metal surfaces, as coloring agents in the manufacture of glass, and as paint pigments; the red sulphides are used in vulcanizing and coloring rubber, as paint pigments, in percussion caps, and in safety matches; and other salts find a wide variety of minor uses in chemical industries and ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... issued 120 rounds to each man in the army, before the battle of Baker's Creek. Much ammunition was destroyed on the battle-field, by order of Gen. Pemberton, to keep it, as he alleged, from falling into the hands of the enemy. During the siege, he got 250,000 percussion caps from Gen. Johnston's scouts, and 150,000 from the enemy's pickets, for a consideration. There was abundance of powder. The ammunition and small arms turned over to the enemy, on the surrender, consisted as follows: 36,000 cartridges for Belgian rifles; 3600 Brunswick cartridges; ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... States to adopt the arm in the military and naval service. Strange as it now seems, however, the officers of the army and navy were not disposed to regard the revolver with favor. They declared that the percussion cap was entirely unreliable, and that no weapon requiring it could be depended on with certainty; that there was great danger that two or more of the charges would explode at the same time; and that the arm was liable to get out of order very easily. ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... replenish water, irrigate silly, foolish coming, advent feeling, sentiment old, antiquated forerunner, precursor sew, embroider unload, exonerate grave, sepulcher readable, legible tell, narrate kiss, osculate nose, proboscis striking, percussion green, verdant stroke, concussion grass, verdure bowman, archer drive, propel greed, avarice book, volume stingy, parsimonious warrior, belligerent bath, ablution owner, proprietor wrong, incorrect bow, obeisance top, summit kneel, genuflection food, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... there is no fracture,' said Sidonia, placing her on a sofa, 'nor does it appear to me that the percussion of the head, though considerable, could have been fatally violent. I have caught her pulse. Keep her in a horizontal position, and she will ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... reaper. I observed the excellent service of the Hotchkiss Mountain gun; they certainly do their work to perfection and well did the Dons know it. Many shots fired into the "blind ditches and blockhouses" of the enemy caused them to scatter like rats. These guns use a percussion shell nearly two inches, and can be packed on mules. They were designed for light service with cavalry on the frontier. Four of these little beauties were manned by men of the Tenth Cavalry. The Spanish made it so hot ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... son of a native of Morayshire. Samuel Guthrie (1782-1848), physician and chemist, was descendant of John Guthrie, who came to America in 1661. He was one of the pioneers who introduced vaccination, produced the first successful percussion powder (after many experiments), invented the "punch lock" which superseded the flint-lock musket, and, in 1831, discovered the anaesthetic chloroform. Hugh Williamson (1735-1819), statesman and scientist, born in Pennsylvania and educated in Edinburgh. He studied ...
— Scotland's Mark on America • George Fraser Black
... not an explosive bullet," I replied, "otherwise I should have been confirmed in that opinion. I should have said that the percussion cap was carried by this lead plunger and struck on the end of that steel rod when the flight of the bullet ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... times the fire would come in salvos quickly repeated. Bursts of fire would be made for ten or fifteen minutes at a time. We got all varieties of projectile, from 3 inch to 8 inch, or perhaps 10 inch; the small ones usually as air bursts, the larger percussion and air, and ...
— In Flanders Fields and Other Poems - With an Essay in Character, by Sir Andrew Macphail • John McCrae
... physical necessity of movement, spurred on by a futile instinct that the end of his walk would be the end of his trouble—his amazing, black, menacing trouble. A pony's trot behind him struck through the silence like percussion-caps; all Jakko seemed to echo with it; and it came nearer—insistent, purposeful—but he was hardly aware of it until the creature pulled up beside him, and Madeline, slipping ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... that all who used liquor in this world would suffer eternal torment in the next; he advocated a return to pristine habits and customs, counseling the tribes "to throw away their flints and steels, and resort to their original mode of obtaining fire by percussion. He denounced the woolen stuffs as not equal to skins for clothing; he commended the use of the bow and arrow. As to inter-marriage between the races, all this was prohibited. The two races were distinct and must ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... Bang-Bang-Bang they come along in a reg'lar string down the road. They couldn't see us, an' I suppose they was just shooting on the map in the hopes o' catching any reliefs o' the infantry on the road. Most o' the shells was percussion, after the first go, an' they was slam-bangin' down in the road an' the fields alongside an' flinging dirt and gravel in showers over us. "Come on," sez the Forward Officer; "this locality is lookin' ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... chord; I do not find it necessary." Here the pianist played a succession of ringing chords, whose power and tonal quality bore out her words; the fingers seemed merely to press and cling; there was no striking nor percussion. ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... on its winding way, is common to them all. Slipped in at the back door or rammed home at the front, delicately stirred up by the insinuating needle and its titbit of fulminate or bluntly ordered off by the snappish percussion-cap, it is the same obedient and faithful messenger, and goes on its appointed errand in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... in his request that I should leave Snowfoot, that I couldn't well refuse,—though I did decline to trouble him, till he brought out a double-barrelled argument,—stub twist, percussion lock,—which finally persuaded me. He is one of the most urgent men I ever saw," added Jack, ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... and the major hurriedly entered the inn. He took down from its pegs an awkward, smoothbore rifle and carefully examined the enormous percussion cap that was fitted over the nipple. Mistrusting the cap, he removed it and replaced it with a new one. He scrutinized the gun keenly, as if he could judge in this manner of the condition of the load. All his movements ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... can boast of a navigable river and a canal, besides being situated on a central railroad. Colonel Rains said, that although the Southerners had certainly been hard up for gunpowder at the early part of the war, they were still harder up for percussion caps. An immense number (I forget how many) of these are now made daily in the Government factory ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... Repeating and percussion rifles were unknown at that day, and it took much valuable time to reload musket or gun after its discharge. Knowing this, the infuriated redskins were likely to make a rush whenever they knew that the weapons within the ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... in loading his gun as he expected to come upon moose at any time. He placed a patch of cotton about the ball before ramming it in, and made sure that the powder showed in the nipple before putting on the percussion cap. And as he took his fire-steel and whetted a keener edge upon his knife, a smile of hunter's contentment overspread his face, because he well knew how soon he was to use the blade. That morning he did not light his pipe as usual because, as he explained, he wanted to have his wits about him; ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... CRESCENT, TURKISH JINGLE, or JINGLING JOHNNY (Fr. chapeau chinois; Ger. tuerkischer Halbmond, Schellenbaum; Ital. cappello chinese), an instrument of percussion of indefinite sonorousness, i.e. not producing definite musical tones. The chapeau chinois was formerly an adjunct in military bands, but never in the orchestra, where an instrument of somewhat similar shape, often confused with it and known as the Glockenspiel (q.v.), ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... containing high explosive and exploding by contact or time fuse. Grenades may be divided roughly into two classes—1, hand grenades, and 2, rifle grenades, and each of these classes may be subdivided as regards means of explosion, into 1, time fuse, or 2, percussion grenades. ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... another form made out of brass, long and straight. The Hebrews also used a wind instrument like our flute, a pipe with holes on the side for making the different notes. They seem also to have been very fond of percussion instruments—the timbal, a small drum, and the cymbals, metal plates ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... them all up for you in a very few words. According to the Rational of Guillaume Durand, the hardness of the metal signifies the force of the preacher. The percussion of the clapper on the sides expresses the idea that the preacher must first scourge himself to correct himself of his own vices before reproaching the vices of others. The wooden frame represents the cross of Christ, and the cord, which formerly served to set the ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans |
