"Percussion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... be aware of a wonderful revolution, compared to which the fire of Mittwalden Palace was but the crack and flash of a percussion-cap. The countenance with which the pines regarded her began insensibly to change; the grass too, short as it was, and the whole winding staircase of the brook's course, began to wear a solemn freshness of appearance. And this slow transfiguration reached her heart, and played upon ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... but they were soon returned with interest. Though the enemy used smokeless explosives, their battery was revealed by the yellow flash of the guns in the purple shadow of the hill. These guns were worked with marvellous accuracy, but, fortunately, many of the shells—fired with percussion fuses—dug deep into the sand before bursting. The Volunteer Battery found their own guns so inferior to those of the enemy that there was little chance of silencing them, and General French, seeing there was ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... troublesome uvula cut out, was detained at the Cape nearly two months after his family left. He was so distrusted by the authorities that they would hardly sell powder and shot to him, and he had to fight a battle that demanded all his courage and perseverance for a few boxes of percussion-caps. At the last moment, a troublesome country postmaster, to whom he had complained of an overcharge of postage, threatened an action against him for defamation of character, and, rather than be further detained, deep in debt though he ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... New Mexico, Arizona, California. We aren't colonial oppressors, thank God! No, it wouldn't have worked out, even if we American immigrants had secured our rights in Texas—" He lifted a short, heavy, percussion pistol in his hand and cocked it. "I hate to say it, but perhaps if we hadn't taken Payne and Jefferson so seriously—if we could only have paid lip service, and done what we really wanted to do, in our hearts ... no matter. I won't live to see our ...
— Remember the Alamo • R. R. Fehrenbach
... 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 one of the ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... other music than the percussion of hands, a man would execute a pas seul, which it is to be presumed he enjoyed. Again, with a riper and better sense of musical methods, the performer accompanied himself, or, as in this case it usually was, herself, on the double-pipes, the guitar or the tambourine, while the familiar ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... and deafened by the brass and percussion instruments I tried to get away, but my neighbors protested and I was forced to sit and suffer. What followed was incomprehensible. The crazy amazons, the Walk-your-horses, and the disagreeable Wotan kept things in a perfect uproar for half ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... 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 for the boys that they would have to roll the gun under ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... center; middle &c. 68; focus &c. 74. core, kernel; nucleus, nucleolus; heart, pole axis, bull's eye; nave, navel; umbilicus, backbone, marrow, pith; vertebra, vertebral column; hotbed; concentration &c. (convergence) 290; centralization; symmetry. center of gravity, center of pressure, center of percussion, center of oscillation, center of buoyancy &c.; metacenter[obs3]. V. be central &c. adj.; converge &c. 290. render central, centralize, concentrate; bring to a focus. Adj. central, centrical[obs3]; middle &c. 68; azygous, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... one sense far more ancient than man, and the voice was from the very commencement of human existence a source of melody: but so far as musical instruments are concerned, it is probable that percussion came first, then wind instruments, and lastly, those with strings: first the Drum, then the Flute, and thirdly, the Lyre. The early history of Music is, however, unfortunately wrapped in much obscurity. The use of letters long preceded the invention of notes, and ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... the thing 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 ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... prognostic; and by its following, and nearly keeping pace with us, we were in great fear lest it should break upon and overwhelm us, if not carefully avoided. Our commander, therefore, as it approached nearer and nearer, ordered one of the ship's guns to be fired, to try if the percussion of the air would disperse it. This was no sooner done than we heard a prodigious flounce in the water, at but a small distance from the ship, on the weather-quarter; and after a violent noise, or cry in the air, the cloud, that upon ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... fine thing, Mr. Editor, but it should be handled as one handles the spiked guns which the rebels leave behind, loaded with percussion-caps—very carefully. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... 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 Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... because I play upon an instrument of percussion I admire that other percussive machine of wood and wire, the piano, or consider the tympanum an ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... caper fill, 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, nutrition work, occupation ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... three recognized methods of application. First—Rubbing, to stimulate the skin to action. Second—Rolling, and pinching gently, also a kneading movement, used principally to stimulate. the stomach, bowels, and muscular tissues. Third—Percussion, or tapping with the ends of the fingers, softly-most effiacious in stimulating the action of ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... If with a percussion cap and a tear we may develop sufficient power to deflect a magnetic needle 3,000 miles distant, what power may not be expected of the sun, 1,250,000 times larger than the earth; the sun exercising a force of ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers
... thing of life was to be seen 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 ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... most obvious objection to them is the one above alluded to. The cartridges must, of necessity, be made by special machinery, and can be supplied only from the manufactory. To this it is replied, that the same objection may be urged against the use of percussion-caps. We grant it; and if it were possible to dispense with them, it would be an obvious gain. But because we must have caps, in spite of their disadvantages, it does not follow that we should increase unnecessarily the equipments against which the same objection exists in a much greater degree, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... of the liver, and he divides it into four species, to-wit, leucoflantia, yposarcha, alchitis and tympanitis, each of which has its special and appropriate treatment. In the dreary waste of speculative discussion it is cheering, however, to observe Gilbert's positive recognition of the sphere of percussion ...
— Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century • Henry Ebenezer Handerson
... Cynthia gave what help she could to her nephew, as he began reloading it. From the powder flask she poured a charge down the barrel, upon which Tom pressed the conical bullet, wrapped about with a small bit of greased muslin. Then he had only to place a percussion-cap on the tube, and he was ready ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... 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 ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... 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 in the morning. Great was ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... 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 clean, and replaced in his breast for him. We made a large basin full of ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... delivered himself at greater length and more explicitly than about any other opera. From the above excerpt one can learn his notions touching musical characterization and delineation. ["Turkish" music, or "Janizary" music, is that in which the percussion effects of Oriental music are imitated—music utilizing the large drum, cymbals, ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... was to make preparations for my flight. I collected all the food of every description and packed it away in a bag, which I fastened round my waist. I took my rifle and filled my powder-flask, with a further supply in a leathern case which had been Obed's, and all the percussion-caps, and as much shot as I could carry. I took the precaution also of collecting all the bows and arrows, and other weapons, of the Indians, and of piling them upon the fire, where they were quickly consumed. Then I threw over my shoulder my buffalo-skin ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... calm state, in a well-ventilated though darkened room, and with the clothing removed, as at night. A similar nap in the afternoon is not so good, but is better than nothing. The tepid sitz-bath on going to bed will often produce sleep, and so will gentle percussion given by an attendant with palms of the hand over the back for a few minutes on retiring. To secure sound sleep do not read, write or severely tax the mind in the ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... issued from their mouths, and 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 remain so. Neither could there be any separate or individual ownership of any ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... 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, ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... again lay hold of their guns; but where is the ammunition? Stowed in a pair of holsters on the pommel of Cypriano's saddle, as they well know—powder, balls, percussion-caps, everything. And where is the horse himself; for, left loose, he has moved off to another ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... quarter-deck. The guns were all 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
... pulley, aided me; so aided, I confined my whole attention to spade labor. The centripetal force seemed to have made me its especial victim. I dug on until autumn. In the beginning of November I observed that, upon percussion, the sound given by the floor of my pit was resonant. I did not intermit my labor, urged as I was by a mysterious instinct downward. On applying my ear, I occasionally heard a subdued sort of rattle, which caused me to form a theory that the centre of the earth ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... pains. Along with these 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 ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... probity which the crisis developed was the revival of efforts to procure arms. The peasantry, farmers, town-population—all of every rank—sought to possess themselves of weapons of war, especially firearms. The demand for powder and percussion-caps was as eager as for weapons. Birmingham was kept busy; every hand in the gun-making trades there was employed; Sheffield was also labouring at sword cutlery, and in the manufacture of daggers and bayonets; while the smithies of Ireland were extensively ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... filled with the battle. People thought and talked of nothing else; even the children showed their little spites by calling to each other, 'Here, you rebel;' and mere scraps of boys amused themselves with percussion-caps and hammers. Hundreds of old muskets were piled on the pavements, the men who shouldered them a week before, lying underground now, or helping to fill the long trains of ambulances on their way from the field. The private houses of the town were, ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... in one direction, I struck a large 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, and I'd die happy. All of a sudden, I got sight of a blaze! ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... 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 rest ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... Instead of 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 ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... artillerist in the manner of an ordinary cannon. Its noiseless discharge sends the missile with great force, conveying the powerful explosive within it, which is itself discharged internally upon contact with the deck of a vessel or other object upon which it strikes, through the explosion of a percussion fuse in the point of the projectile. A great degree of accuracy has been obtained by the peculiar form ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various
... said the count, "has fifty thousand stand of arms to sell. With them he has three million percussion-caps and three million cartridges. His price for the whole is—" he paused there and waited, ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... of steel, so arranged that its friction, when in motion, threw sparks of fire into the pan that contained the powder. The snaphance was a slight improvement upon the wheel-lock. The flint-lock followed, now half a century since superseded by the percussion ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... commence with, got into the motor, and took it round to a place called the East Laboratory, a series of detached buildings, where I knew that I should find whatever I wanted: and I prepared my mind for a day's labour. In this place I found incredible stores: mountains of percussion-caps, more chambers of fuses, small-arm cartridges, shells, and all those murderous explosive mixtures, a-making and made, with which modern savagery occupied its leisure in exterminating itself: ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... 8ve.) (2d violins; percussion with cellos below) (Harp with violas) (Flutes with higher 8ve.) ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... 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 ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... Caps.—The inventor of percussion caps is not known, but we read of them as being made here as early as 1816, though they were not introduced into "the service" until 1839. The manufacture of these articles has several times led to great loss of life among the workers, notes of which will ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... oblong projectile, that goes singing 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 much ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... to add a few words about the percussion instruments which the military band permits to connect with the wind. Drums are, with the exception of kettle drums, indeterminate instruments, hardly, in themselves, to be regarded as musical, and yet important factors of musical and especially rhythmic effect. ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... re-percussion of the Rome Conference was the great meeting which took place in Prague on May 16, on the occasion of the jubilee celebration of the foundation ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... than that of gunpowder. The conical point at the end is made separate from the body of the cylinder, and slides into it by a sort of shank, which, when the bullet strikes the body of the lion or other wild beast, acts like a sort of percussion cap to explode the fulminating powder, and thus the instant that the missile enters the animal's body it bursts with a terrible explosion, and scatters the iron fragments of the cylinder among his vitals. Thus, while an ordinary musket ball might lodge in his flesh, or even pass ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... the g forms, making a slight percussion in the back of the mouth. Finish clearly all ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... did from the moment of percussion onward, in a mood of exaltation entirely strange to her, but, as she was astonished to find, by no means disagreeable. She found afterwards that she only remembered very indistinctly her selection of the window and her preparations for the fatal blow, but that the ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... Besides 500 barrels of gunpowder, there was on board several hundredweight of highly explosive percussion powder. The brig was about three miles distant ...
— The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay - Narrated in a Letter to a Friend • Duncan McGregor
... recognition of the same general principles of syllabication in poetry as in prose; the supposition that accent pertains not to certain letters in particular, but to certain syllables as such; the limitation of accent to stress, or percussion, only; the conversion of short syllables into long, and long into short, by a change of accent; our frequent formation of long syllables with what are called short vowels; our more frequent formation of short syllables with what are called ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... off, it releases a strong spring, which forces the firing pin into a percussion cap. This ignites the fuse, which burns down and sets off the detonator, charged with fulminate of mercury, which explodes the main charge ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... bullet-pouch a piece of greased rag, 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 ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... the explosion reverberated through the clear summer air, and Ann, returning home from the village by way of a short cut through the woods, smiled to herself as she heard it. She knew that sound—the staccato percussion of a burst ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... way. To prevent a rush being made into the town the construction of a stockade was to be commenced at daylight at the end of the street on the left bank. The old nakhoda declared his intention to command there himself. A distribution of powder, bullets, and percussion-caps was made immediately under the girl's supervision. Several messengers were to be dispatched in different directions after Jim, whose exact whereabouts were unknown. These men started at dawn, but before that time Kassim had managed to open communications ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... so they rolled over backward with their heels in the air, shouted "Kammuk!"—"The Devil!"—and gave themselves up for lost. My hearty laughter finally reassured them, and made them a little ashamed of their momentary panic; but from that time forward they handled tin cans as if they were loaded percussion shells, and could never again be induced to taste a morsel ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... 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
... obtained, the basic salt, which has the composition Sn{2}N{2}O{7}, 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 ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... article on percussion, he says: "A few days since, when I was seated with the back of my chair facing a chiffonier, the door of this receptacle was opened by some one, and swung back so as to touch my hair. The touch could not but have ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... 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 drawing it from its silver-gilt sheath, proceeded to break the point of this murderous ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... 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
... agreed that should Klutchem demand protection of the police, and the colonel be hauled up for violating the law of the State, I should go bail and Fitz employ the lawyer, when we were startled by a sound like the snap of a percussion-cap, followed by loud talking in the ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... of those towers and arches is matter of absolute certainty from the details. That they should have been built before the Conquest is as unlikely as, say, that the rustiest old gun with a percussion lock should be older than ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... 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 10th and 11th considerable ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... and the Duke of Gordon, Willis went north at the beginning of September, 1834. The nominal attraction of Scotland he found, rather to his dismay, was the shooting. The guest, he observes, on arriving at a country-house, is asked whether he prefers a flint or a percussion lock, and a double-barrelled Manton is put into his hands; while after breakfast the ladies leave the table, wishing him good sport. 'I would rather have gone to the library,' says the Penciller. 'An ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... 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 was the same with man, the most highly organized of nature's works. Man, in his primitive and perfect state, was not only endowed, like the brute, with the power of expressing his sensations by interjections, and his perceptions by onomatopoieia. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of European make, striking either flints or percussion caps, are also in occasional use as shot-guns, in ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... Lenox Avenue and 110th Street under Central Park, a two-track subway was driven through micaceous rock by taking out top headings and then two full-width benches. The work was done from two shafts and one portal. All drilling for the headings was done by an eight-hour night shift, using percussion drills. The blasting was done early in the morning and the day gang removed the spoil, which was hauled to the shafts and the portal in cars drawn by mules. A large part of the rock was crushed for concrete. The concrete floor was the first part of the lining to be put in place. Rails ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous
... sarcoma of the lower end of the tibia, the swelling lacks the uniform distribution of that met with in joint disease. In Brodie's abscess of the lower end of the tibia there may be swelling of the ankle, but there is an area of special tenderness on percussion over the bone. ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... lips once or 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
... over, in his mind, the paratemporal areas in which gunpowder but not the percussion-cap was known. Expanding cultures, which had progressed as far as the former but not the latter. Static cultures, in which an accidental discovery of gunpowder had never been followed up by further research. Post-debacle ...
— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper
... greatly to one of the natives accompanying them of the difficulty of walking through the deep sand. "Ah," he answered, "it's nothing to the trouble I have walking on your city-sidewalks." To save the feet from the effects of violent percussion and uneven surfaces, they must be protected by thick soles, and thick soles require strong upper-leather. When the foot is wedged into one of these casings, a new boot, a struggle begins between them, which ends in a compromise. The foot becomes more or ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... it set out from Kirundu numbered 300 fighting men, armed with flint-locks, double-barrelled percussion guns, and a few breech-loaders; their followers, or domestic slaves and women, doubled this force.... Within the enclosure was a series of low sheds extending many lines deep from the immediate edge of the clay bank inland, 100 yards; in length the camp was about 300 yards. At the landing-place ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... 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 the evils ...
— Rational Horse-Shoeing • John E. Russell
... unbelief as by an understanding cased in the mail of denial. You may hammer ice on an anvil, or bray it in a mortar. What then? It is pounded ice still, except for the little portion melted by heat of percussion, and it will soon all congeal again. Melt it in the sun, and it flows down in sweet water, which mirrors that light which loosed its bonds of cold. So hammer away at unbelief with your logical sledge-hammers, and you will change its shape, perhaps; but it is none the less unbelief ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... that at this epoch percussion caps were virtually unknown, and the infantry of all nations still used flint-lock muskets, which it was almost impossible to fire once the priming powder became wet. Now, as it had rained without ceasing for the whole ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... not only between two pieces of silex, but also between two pieces of quartz, porcelain, or sugar; and that the heat developed is but slight is proved by the fact that the phenomenon may occur under water. Of course, fragments of stones may be raised to a red heat through percussion; but this does not often occur, so for this reason the Fuegians keep up with the greatest care the fires that they have lighted, and it is this very peculiarity that has given their country a characteristic ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... 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 there is no man but will be a little more raised by hearing it said, "Your enemies will ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... the 8th of April, two brigades of the British army encamped on the Delanta plateau, in full view of the heights of Magdala. By the night of the 9th all preparations were completed for storming the fortress. Theodore had posted his army, consisting of 3000 soldiers armed with percussion guns, a host of spearmen, and several pieces of ordnance, on the flat-topped hill of Fala. Here he had come to conquer, as he thought it possible, with his cherished guns, or to die should he meet with defeat. Between the armies was the plain of Arogye. In front rose, more than 1000 feet above ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... spoken of and written about by the coaching men at the beginning of this century; but when in 1700 the flintlock musket made its appearance popular prejudice was shaken, and it was completely removed in 1820 when percussion guns came into pretty ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... 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 brought their rifles to aid ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... Percussion. Stock originally full length, but has been shortened 11-1/2 inches. Brass mounts and long brass patch-box. Ramrod ...
— A Catalogue of Early Pennsylvania and Other Firearms and Edged Weapons at "Restless Oaks" • Henry W. Shoemaker
... clumsy, old-fashioned thing, but the Colonel saw the glint of a percussion-cap upon the nipple, and knew that it was loaded. He slipped it into the inner pocket ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... signs about of the occupant's love of the sweet science; for there were a tuning-fork, a pitch-pipe, and a metronome on the chimney-piece, a large musical-box on the front of the book-case, some nondescript pipes, reeds, and objects of percussion; and, to show that other tastes were cultivated to some extent, there were, besides, several golf-clubs, fishing-rods, ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... pursuance of a queer thought which had leaped into his brain during the enforced interval. But, if he had been thinking hard, so had Curtis, and the latter had outlined a plan of action which was fated to disrupt Steingall's, much as a harmless looking percussion cap may interfere with the smug ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... 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
... is of the required thickness. While yet soft it will receive and retain any impression that may be given to if on the outside. When perfectly dry the clay within is broken into small fragments by percussion, and the pieces are drawn out through the aperture which is always left fur the purpose. The common bottle of India Rubber, therefore, consists of numerous layers of pure caoutchouc, alternating with as many layers ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... 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 ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... 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 soon ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... arrangement would not be great if it depended merely on the hydrostatic pressure of the waves, since this under favorable circumstances would not be more than that of a column of water twenty feet high, giving a pressure of about ten pounds to the square inch. The effect, however, of the percussion might add considerably to this, though the latter would be confined in effect to a single instance. In regard to the practical result from this arrangement, which was continued in operation for several ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... 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
... just returned to the Brigadier when the Boer guns began to shell the tip of the hill. The first two or three projectiles skimmed over the surface, and roared harmlessly away. But the Boers were not long in striking their mark. Two percussion shells burst on the exposed side of the hill, and then a well-exploded shrapnel searched its summit, searched and found what it sought. Major Childe was instantly killed by a fragment that entered ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... again, 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 could ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... discovered that ten cents would buy a 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 ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... appear an odd word to use in connection with machinery and mechanical operations. Yet its original signification was quite appropriate, inasmuch as it related to the preparation of explosive substances, such as shells, rockets, fusees, cartridges, and percussion caps, where chemistry was as much concerned as mechanism in producing the required ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... They took eighteen more, all of which were diseased,—most of them very bad cases,—indeed, extreme cases. That left eight heads, which were not condemned, because not appearing to be diseased. Here I remark, that when this disease is under the shoulder-blade, it cannot be detected by percussion. The physicians did not say that the animal was not diseased, but that they did not see sufficient evidence upon which to condemn. Such animals were to be paid for, upon the ground of their not appearing to be diseased. Nevertheless, it is proper to state that the remaining ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... aware of little indeed except the 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 ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... rolled into the sap, and I've had it put into the fire-trench. I'm taking it back to blow it up. I think it's a percussion fuse, but it seems fairly safe. I've sent for a stretcher ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... French physician, Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec, achieved undying fame by publishing to the world an account of his labors in the application of mediate auscultation and of percussion to the diagnosis of the diseases of the chest. It is true that no less a personage than the "Father of Medicine," Hippocrates, is reputed to have practised succussion as a means of diagnosis; that is, the shaking of a patient, as one would shake a cask, to ascertain by ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... Astrologers call the evil influences of the stars, Evil Aspects; so that still there seemeth to be acknowledged, in the act of envy, an ejaculation or irradiation of the eye. Nay some have been so curious as to note that the times when the stroke or percussion of an envious eye doth most hurt, are, when the party envied is beheld in glory or triumph; for that sets an edge upon Envy; And besides, at such times, the spirits of the persons envied do come forth most into the outward parts, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... on such subjects, as the range he mentions has nothing whatever to do with the principle or mechanism of the gun in question. He ought also, before he expressed himself so strongly, to have known, that the extreme range of an English percussion musket is nearer one mile than 150 yards (which latter distance, he says, they do not exceed) and he would not have been so astonished at the range of the Zuendnadel guns being 800 yards, if he had seen, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... 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 of logs and chains crossed the ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... quickness, who, having, by virtue of this, arrived at fine words and figures of speech, set off on their nimble rhetorical Pegasus, keep well out of the Muse's reach ever after! How many go conspicuously through life, snapping their smart percussion-caps upon empty barrels, because, forsooth, powder and ball do not come of themselves, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... was followed by a 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 ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... Turkish weapon was known as the "broomstick bomb" and was also propelled from a mortar. It consisted of a 4-inch cartridge case filled with a high explosive and also containing metal such as boiler punchings, nails, etc. (in one case gramophone needles were discovered), and provided with a percussion cap. It was fitted to a stick about two inches thick and five feet long. Its descent into our lines or support area was almost vertical—hence no cover then available was proof against it. Its effect was very destructive ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... 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 ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... to-night with a wound in the hand and shoulder from a shell which killed eleven of his men, and another who went to see four of his platoon in a house at the exact moment when a percussion shell went on the same errand; the whole house sat down, and the five were ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... simple and compound; rough and polished; primary and secondary chipping; cleavage; firing; bulb of percussion; mineralogy of implements; patine, ...
— Anthropology - As a Science and as a Branch of University Education in the United States • Daniel Garrison Brinton
... But at last, after the quest of centuries, the quill, thorn, and ivory were discarded and a small hammer struck the string, giving a clear, precise, but delicate tone hitherto unheard. The "scratch with a sound at the end" was gone forever. The harpsichord had been changed into an instrument of percussion, and it only remained for man to perfect that primitive creation into the superb piano ...
— How the Piano Came to Be • Ellye Howell Glover
... about the velocity of sound, viz. about thirteen miles in a minute. The earthquake in 1693 extended 2600 leagues. (Goldsmith's History.) These phenomena are easily explained if the central parts of the earth consist of a fluid lava, as a percussion on one part of such a fluid mass would be felt on other parts of its confining vault, like a stroke on a fluid contained in a bladder, which however gentle on one side is perceptible to the hand placed on the other; and the velocity with which such a concussion would travel would be that of sound, ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... 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 him. He still stood firm, looking grimly at me, and disregarding ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... Everything has its silk snapper. Are not the literary whips of Paris famous for their rhetorical tips and the sting there is in them? What French writer ever goaded his adversary with the belly of his lash, like the Germans and the English, when he could blister him with its silken end, and the percussion of wit ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... scarcely a yard distant when the neck of the snake arched like a swan's, and the head was drawn far back to strike. In an instant the stock of his rifle swept over the top of the log with the quickness of lightning. There followed a sharp, cracking noise, like the explosion of a percussion-cap, and the head of the rattlesnake spun twenty feet or more out over the swamp. It struck the branch of a tree, and, dropping to the water, sunk out of sight. The headless body of the reptile now writhed and doubled over ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... banners such as the Khalifa carried during the action, and thousands of native spears, swords, and shields. In short, it would be easier to tell what was not in that extraordinary storehouse than what was. Among other articles I saw were: Ivory, powder, percussion caps, old lead, copper, tin, bronze, cloth, looms, pianos, sewing machines, agricultural implements, boilers, steam-engines, ostrich feathers, gum, hippopotamus hides, iron and wooden bedsteads, drums, bugles, field ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... 60,000 muskets and a large amount of ammunition. The small-arms of the enemy were far superior to the bulk of ours. Up to this time our troops at the West had been limited to the old United States flint-lock muskets changed into percussion, or the Belgian musket imported early in the war—almost as dangerous to the person firing it as to the one aimed at—and a few new and improved arms. These were of many different calibers, a fact that caused ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... He did not spill over on every occasion. He had no little spurts of wit like a spatter of water on a hot stove, but when he let out his joke it went off like a percussion cap. The attention of the company being secured, he alluded to his present position as a change, he believed, for the better—from his former relation to society when he was preaching against, to the present time when he was working for, humanity; and gave as a toast, "Ephraim ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... explosive percussion bomb was brought in one day for us to identify the explosive present. We did not allow the messenger even to lay it down but besought him to hold it tight and to keep moving towards the explosives laboratory seven miles away while we escorted ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... date 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 ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... the prahus to make for the shore through the water, when many of them fell from our musquetry. It was now about six o'clock in the morning, our last charge of canister shot was in the gun, the last rocket in the tube, and nearly all the percussion caps expended. The barge was pulled closer to the nearest prahu to give more effect to the discharge, and the captain was in the stern of the barge with the rocket tube in hand, when one of the prahus on shore fired her swivel; the ball struck the captain, and knocked ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... of the Port, stated that he would not grant a permit for percussion caps, unless by permission of the military authorities. The impression at the Custom House is that the whole transaction of shipping these goods is a fraud, and they do not know what to think ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... afterwards a forged-steel thin-walled shell (obus allonge) was introduced. To explode the shell a steel receptacle (called a gaine) is screwed into the nose of the shell. It is filled with explosive and fitted with a detonator which is exploded by a percussion fuze. Except for the means adopted to ensure detonation this shell is practically the same as the lyddite ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... on an anvil or stone; feel it. Bullets fired against an iron or stone surface may be picked up very hot. Note sparks that can be struck from a stone; percussion ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... gunmaker, of London. This shell was composed of iron, covered with lead. The interior was a cast-iron bottle (similar in shape to a stoneware Seltzer water bottle); the neck formed a nipple to receive a percussion-cap. The entire bottle was concealed by a leaden coating, which was cast in a mould to fit a No. 8, or two-ounce rifle. The iron bottle contained three drachms of the strongest gunpowder, and a simple cap pressed down upon the nipple prepared the ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... Le Bour, agriculturist at Hirondelette, charges Monsieur Charles Louis Ernest Tanrade, born in Paris, soldier of the Thirteenth Infantry, musician, composer, with flagrant trespass in his buckwheat on hectare number seven, armed with the gun of percussion on the thirtieth of September at ten-forty-five in ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... are all savory treasures,—the rose and violet colored sugars of Alexandria, sweet almonds, and sharp-toothed ginger. We pardon his puns, indeed we believe them to be inevitable, the flash of the percussion cap, the sparks of electricity, St. Elmo's stars, phosphorescent gleams, playing over the restless ocean of his fruitful imagination. And we are persuaded that if the venerable Democritus (who was uncanonized only because the Holy See was still wavering, an anomalous body, in Weissnichtwo, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... would have killed an elephant. The oak case that I bought with it cumbers my desk as I write, and, shut, you would think that it had never contained anything more lethal than fruit-knives. I open it, and there are the green-baize compartments, one with a box of percussion caps, still apparently full, another that could not contain many more wadded-bullets, and a third with a powder-horn which can never have been much lighter. Within the lid is a label bearing the makers' names; the gentlemen themselves are unknown ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... see at once that, with the miserable and cowardly exception of laying the stymie, there is no stroke in this game that fulfils the proper conditions which should govern athletic contests involving the use of spherical objects with or without instruments of percussion. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 15, 1920 • Various
... momentary hysterical crying and sobbing. The color never left the lips or cheeks. The pulse remained of the same power. Consciousness could have been but slightly diminished, inasmuch as on my then opening the eyelids I perceived a distinct upward and other movement of the eyeballs. Each percussion stroke of my examination, and even the pressure of the stethoscope, produced an expression of pain, which elicited a natural sympathy from the mother, and an assertion that a continuance of such examination would bring on further fits. On percussing the region ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond
... 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, ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... there was a spring trigger, which was held by a light iron cross bar, ingeniously attached to the longitudinal bar, so arranged that from the lightest touch it would fall off, letting the trigger fall on the upper part of the torpedo, striking a percussion cap immediately underneath it in the powder chamber, thus ...
— Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten
... hand, and this amiable specimen of fraternity by the right, the struggle of an instant ensued. The muzzle of the pistol was close upon my breast when my adversary discharged it. I felt the sharp, hard knock of the ball upon my chest, and the percussion for the moment took away my breath, but my hold upon the villain's throat was unrelaxed. The gurgling of suffocation became audible to his ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... matches showed me, that cave contained other stores—item, kegs of gunpowder; item, casks of cheap spirit; item, bars of lead, also a box marked "bullet moulds" and another marked "Percussion caps." I think, too, there were some innocent bags full of beads and a few packages of Birmingham-made assegai blades. There may have been other things, but if so I did not wait to investigate them. Gathering up the ends ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... 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 ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... are small, round tin boxes, about the size of a silver dollar, filled with percussion powder. To each is attached two little straps of lead, which are bent under the upper part of the rail to hold the torpedo in position. When it is struck by the ponderous wheels of a locomotive, it explodes with the sound of a cannon cracker. The explosion of two torpedoes, one directly ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe |
