"Torpedo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... electric cannon. It fires a solid ball, weighing about twenty-five pounds, but instead of powder, which would hardly do under water, and instead of compressed air, which is used in the torpedo tubes of the Government submarines, we use a current of electricity. It forces the cannon ball out with ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... the valley from out of a black shed—the only sign of man's handiwork for many miles—it came—something grey at first, moving slowly as though being pushed down a slight incline, then afloat in the air, gathering speed—something between a torpedo with wings and a great prehistoric insect. Now and then it described strange circles, but mostly it came towards them as swift and as true as an arrow shot from a bow. The two men looked at one another—the shorter, to whose cheeks the Cumberland winds had brought no trace of colour, ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... For what would there have been to conquer? Mr. Jeff Davis was constantly writing him to take command of a corps in the confederate army, but Col. Sellers said, no, his duty was at home. And he was by no means idle. He was the inventor of the famous air torpedo, which came very near destroying the Union armies in Missouri, and the ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... four battleships, one armored cruiser and two converted yachts, one of them the "Gloucester," under the command of the intrepid Richard Wainwright—of the entire Spanish fleet, consisting of four powerful armored cruisers of the highest class and two torpedo boat destroyers, under the command of ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro
... bottom of Lake Michigan together! They were imprisoned there in a sunken submarine boat, which was the invention of Doctor Anderwelt, and was built with funds furnished by the young broker. The foundryman who had constructed the big torpedo-shaped contrivance had been interviewed. He knew both men, and they were on the most friendly terms. In a moment of confidence Doctor Anderwelt had told him the machine was for submarine exploration; had explained the four-winged rudder, which ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... Presently the furious opponents drifted apart; and the Albemarle, unable to face her other enemies, took refuge upstream. There, on the twenty-seventh of October, she was heroically attacked and sunk by Lieutenant W. B. Cushing, U. S. N., with a spar torpedo projecting from a little steam launch. Cushing himself swam off through a hail of bullets, worked his way through the woods, seized a skiff belonging to one of the enemy's outposts, and reached the flagship half dead but ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... bay to the quarantine station, starting about noon, and there lay to, waiting, as was supposed, for the remainder of the fleet. Suddenly, about 8 p. m., one of the torpedo cruisers came tearing down the bay under full steam, and we heard the message sounded through the megaphone: "Return to port. Three Spanish cruisers within three hours' sail of the offing." It was a thrilling moment. Officers and men were lounging, taking, as they supposed, their last ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... having had long practice in the art, craunched at railway speed. The older boys munched steadily and easily, while Bud and Bobby pecked intermittently in short nibbles. Amarilly had the "star method," which they all vainly tried to emulate. At short and regular intervals a torpedo-like report issued from the gum as she snapped her teeth down upon it. Cory kept hers strung out elastically from her mouth, occasionally ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... dreaded. I saw that I must no longer lose time. Under my little boat-house I had a small submarine boat which I had lately finished, more as a hobby than anything else. I had begun it years ago in my odd moments on a model I had seen of a torpedo used in the American War. My boat is now in the lock outside, and you will see for yourself what ingenuity was needed to construct such a thing. On the night before the one which has just passed, I got it ready, and, as soon as it was ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... yet with the knowledge of the command of men writ plain thereon. The propellers have swirled faithfully and unceasingly; the good ship in consequence has cleft the passive waves. But who knows what hideous lurking peril of mine or torpedo we have not survived, what baleful eye has not glowered at us, itself unseen, and retired again to its foul underworld, baulked of its ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... to tired to wright ennything. i never had so much fun in my life. i only got burned 5 times. 1 snapcracker went off rite in my face and i coodent see ennything til mother washed my eyes out. Zee Smith fired a torpedo and a peace of it flew rite in the corner of my eye and made a blew spot there. i fired every one of my snapcrackers. ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... Order followed order, and soon the gig, with the captain, Trendon, and the torpedo expert, was driving for the point marked "Seal Cave" on the map over which ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... separated him from his adversaries. After a duel with the Japanese "Matsushima," the Chinese flagship "Tingyuen" was severely damaged, and only saved from sinking by the intervention of her sister ship, the "Chenyuen." These two ironclads, together with the torpedo boats, succeeded in making their escape, but five of the Chinese vessels were sunk or destroyed. In men, the Chinese lost 700 killed or drowned and 300 wounded, while the Japanese lost 115 killed and 150 wounded. The result of this ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... and every spring would swim from whatever place he happened to be in—would swim like a torpedo-boat straight for Novastoshnah and spend a month fighting with his companions for a good place on the rocks, as close to the sea as possible. Sea Catch was fifteen years old, a huge gray fur seal ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... all the virtues and graces of the proprietor of one of these life-absorbing organs. When they touch us, virtue passes out of us, and we feel as if our electricity had been drained by a powerful negative battery, carried about by an overgrown human torpedo. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... "his old brag and ostentation have caught these fools! I wonder where his vessel is? If I could fire a torpedo under it and send them all where young Jack and the other boy have gone to, I shouldn't have a dull moment for the rest of ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... it's a torpedo to blow up and scare me; Jack likes to play tricks. Well, I'll scream loud when it goes off, so he will be satisfied that I'm dreadfully frightened," thought Jill, little dreaming what the last surprise of the ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... 6, 1915, the Russian Black Sea fleet ran into the Breslau and the Hamidieh and damaged them both in a running fight. A week later Russian torpedo boats sank several Turkish ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... quantity of ammunition to the Asiatic squadron and providing it with coal; getting the battle-ships and the armored cruisers on the Atlantic into one squadron, both to train them in manoeuvring together, and to have them ready to sail against either the Cuban or the Spanish coasts; gathering the torpedo-boats into a flotilla for practice; securing ample target exercise, so conducted as to raise the standard of our marksmanship; gathering in the small ships from European and South American waters; settling on the number and kind of craft needed as auxiliary cruisers—every one of these points ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... bellow of rage and a sweep of his powerful tail he darted at the inoffensive head. But it vanished instantly, and a sudden tremendous turmoil, developing into a wake that lengthened out with the speed of a torpedo-boat, showed him the hopelessness of pursuit. Turning abruptly, he swam back to the shore and sulkily withdrew into the thickets to ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... to 100 deg. C. decomposes slowly, and sunlight causes it to undergo a slow decomposition. It can, however, be preserved for years without undergoing any alteration. It is very susceptible to explosions by influence. For instance, a torpedo, even placed at a long distance, may explode a line of torpedoes charged with gun-cotton. The velocity of the propagation of the explosion in metallic tubes filled with pulverised gun-cotton has been found to be from 5,000 to 6,000 mms. per second in tin tubes, and 4,000 ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... ship might be, from which two men could blow up fortress after fortress and city after city when and where they chose. Armies could be annihilated, granite and steel would be as tinder before a bomb or torpedo of picric acid dropped from ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... on page 9948, we give illustrations of two torpedo boats, the Azor and Halcon, which have lately been constructed by Messrs Yarrow & Co., of Poplar, for the Spanish government. They are 135 ft. in length by 14 ft. beam, being of the same dimensions as No. 80 torpedo boat, lately completed by the above firm for the Admiralty, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various
... officer on the bridge had seen it too. Simultaneously everyone seemed to become aware that something was wrong—and for a brief second almost a panic occurred. The ship was swinging to port, but Vane realised that it was hopeless: the torpedo must get them. And the sea-gulls circling round the boat shrieked discordantly at him. . . . He took a grip of the rail, and braced himself to meet the shock. Involuntarily he closed his eyes—the devil . . . it was worse than a crump—you ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... cause is the acquisition by the flotilla of battle power. It is a feature of naval warfare that is entirely new.[10] For all practical purposes it was unknown until the full development of the mobile torpedo. It is true that the fireship as originally conceived was regarded as having something of the same power. During the Dutch wars—the heyday of its vogue—its assigned power was on some occasions actually realised, as in the burning of Lord Sandwich's flagship at the battle of Solebay, ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... this time that her attitude to International Law has always been one of approximate reverence. The shells with which she bombarded Rheims Cathedral were contingent shells, and the Lusitania was sunk by a relative torpedo. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 7, 1917. • Various
... Europe we now hear of nothing but smokeless powder and small bore rifles, heavy ironclads and swift cruisers, torpedo boats and dynamite guns. Europe seems hastening on to that time foretold by General Grant when, worn out by a fatal and ruinous policy, she will bow to the supremacy of peace-loving America, and learn anew from her ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... torpedo they caught and deflected on a beam of alternating-current magnetism that repelled it. It did not come nearer than half a mile to the ship. The third they turned their deflecting beam on—and something went strangely wrong with the beam. It pulled that torpedo toward the ship with a sickening ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... feet for a distance of forty feet all around, but these were marked red instead of blue. This was so that the enemy, in case of a charge, or spies coming in at night, could not distinguish harmless stakes from those of the torpedo. We picketed in front and had to pass through where these stakes were posted single file, along little paths winding in and out among them. The men were led out and in by guides and cautioned against ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... be associated in my mind with the ceaseless ring and din of riveting-hammers, where, day by day, hour by hour, a new fleet is growing, destroyers and torpedo boats alongside monstrous submarines—yonder looms the grim bulk of Super-dreadnought or battle cruiser or the slender shape of some ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... Concord and Lexington, was the return of Mr. Perkins to his home. A piece of burning punk lay in the road, and presently he stepped on that. The fleeing forces had doubled on their tracks, also, and a fire-cracker exploded near him. Then a torpedo. And there was no enemy in sight to take revenge on. Mr. Perkins hastened his steps and was ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... the old man; but when the Italian had bowed himself out and his guests had sunk into their seats again, he said dryly to Fulkerson, "I reckon they didn't have to torpedo that well, or the derrick wouldn't look quite ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Bessie knows about her mother's death," Tom went on to say, "I don't wonder she feels that way toward everything German. I'd hate the entire race if my mother had been murdered, as those women and children were, when that torpedo was launched against the great passenger steamer ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... time of a prospective Antarctic expedition, and on the following day he called upon Sir Clements and volunteered to command it. Of this eventful visit Sir Clements wrote: 'On June 5, 1899, there was a remarkable coincidence. Scott was then torpedo lieutenant of the Majestic. I was just sitting down to write to my old friend Captain Egerton[1] about him, when he was announced. He came to volunteer to command the expedition. I believed him to be the best man for so great a trust, either ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... hundred thousand tons. Ah, the dear old Bandersnatch! Never can I forget the thrill of exquisite emotion which pervaded my inmost being as I stepped on board in mid-ocean. Everything was in apple-pie order. Bulkheads, girders, and beams shone like glass in the noonday sun. The agile torpedo-catchers had been practising their sports, and I could not resist a feeling of intense pride when I learnt that only fifty of these heroic fellows had that morning perished owing to the accidental explosion of one of their charming playthings at the very crisis of the game. The racers of the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various
... been deluded with a false vision of happiness in marrying him. As to saying that he was master, it was not the fact. The very resolution to which he had wrought himself by dint of logic and honorable pride was beginning to relax under her torpedo contact. He swallowed half his cup of coffee, and ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... afternoon, you may look very fetching, if you are nineteen, and the right sex for the adjective. Miss Sally did, being both, and for our own part we think it was inconsiderate and thoughtless of cook. Sally was sprung upon that young man like a torpedo on a ship with no guards out, saying with fascinating geniality through a smile (as one interests oneself in a civility that means nothing) that Mr. Fenwick had just gone out, and she didn't know when he would be back. But why not ask Mrs. Prince at the school, opposite St. Satisfax, ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... sufficient breath to proceed. By the time he reached the house he was quite speechless, and he dropped on the steps to rest a moment before knocking. As he sat there trying to imagine the flying-machine or torpedo-boat upon which he felt certain Mr. Opp was engaged, he became aware of voices from within, and looking up, he saw the window above him was slightly raised. Overcome by his desire to see his friend at work upon his great invention, he cautiously tiptoed across the ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... hit the plans of the Committee somewhat after the manner of a submarine torpedo. They had everything in readiness for Monday, and the newspapers, which had also got wind of their intentions, had already announced to the public unequivocally that a restricted bond market would be started on that ...
— The New York Stock Exchange in the Crisis of 1914 • Henry George Stebbins Noble
... in an apartment smelling of garlic and the south. Ferminard, a tall, black-bearded creature, with a glittering eye; a brigand from the Rhone Valley who had flung himself into the politics of his country as a torpedo flings itself into the sea, greeted Adams with effusion, when he read Pugin's card; gave him cigarettes, and shut the open window in ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... soldier, in like manner through other molds they have turned out according to pattern the German secret service man. He is a kind of spy-destroyer performing in his sphere the same service that the torpedo-boat destroyer does in its domain. This man was the German reincarnation of Javert, the police inspector who hung so relentlessly upon the flanks of Jean Valjean. In his stolid silence I read an iron determination to "get" me, and in that flickering smile I saw an ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... happened which shocked and startled them with all the force of a torpedo from a U-boat, and ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Spanish fleet, with much loss of life, in Manila Bay, May 1, 1898; seven Americans were wounded, none killed. Admiral Cervera, with the pride of the Spanish battle- ships, cruisers, and torpedo-boats, reached Cuban waters from Cape Verde Islands, and, May 19th, sailed into Santiago Harbor, where he was blockaded—"bottled up"—by Admirals Sampson and Schley's fleets. Cervera's fleet, in an attempt ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... passengers as they stampeded for their life-belts, though there was no panic. Nobs rose with a low growl. I rose, also, and over the ship's side, I saw not two hundred yards distant the periscope of a submarine, while racing toward the liner the wake of a torpedo was distinctly visible. We were aboard an American ship—which, of course, was not armed. We were entirely defenseless; yet without warning, we ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... pleasure the presence in our midst of this famous Polar navigator in August, 1880, and his lady, whose kindliness of manner and elegant French, won the hearts of many. The instructive torpedo lectures of the scientific commander of the Northampton iron-clad, Capt. Fisher, will likewise retain a corner in ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... limitations as to beauty and to brains. Immediately behind her slipped in Mrs. Cripps. The doctor abstained, conscious of having put a match to the fuse which had exploded yesterday's astounding homiletic torpedo. The whole affair irritated him to the point of detestable ill-temper. Still, if only to throw dust in the public eye, the house of Cripps must be represented. He therefore deputed the job—like so many another ungrateful one—to his forlorn-looking and red-eyed spouse. This vote of confidence, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... "Sloshing about in those waves, sea-sick mostly, and wet all the time, and with a mutinous crew, and so afraid you'll miss something that you can't write what you have got." Then he added, as an after- thought, "And our cruisers thinking you're a Spanish torpedo-boat and chucking shells ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... "a naval architect named DUNKIN claims to have constructed a new style of vessel, impervious to rams, shell, or shot." Now, then, where is our friend, Captain ERICSSON? The Captain has a torpedo which he is anxious to explode, near a strong vessel belonging to somebody else. He says it will blow up anything. DUNIN says nothing can blow up his vessel. A contest between these very positive inventors would be a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... she saw Walter! He was in a beautiful, brand new little two-seater, which was shaped very much like a torpedo and came smartly close to ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... carried a battery of six 16-inch guns. Aft, the turret was similarly equipped. Also the Queen Mary mounted other big guns and rapid firers. She was equipped with an even half-dozen 12-inch torpedo tubes. She was one of the biggest ships of war ...
— The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake
... Berlin that she has been especially successful. To her credit there are: A bust of her royal highness the Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein; Mr. Gladstone, in marble and bronze; G. F. Watts, in bronze, for the 'Permanent Manchester Art Exhibition'; Mr. Peter Brotherhood, inventor of a torpedo engine, in marble and bronze, which held the place of honor at the Royal Academy the year of its exhibition; Princess Henry of Prussia, in marble; her highness Princess Helena of Saxe-Altenburg; his excellency the Baron von Rheinbaben, minister of finance; his excellency ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... in effect, a claim to torpedo at sight, without regard to the safety of the crew or passengers, any merchant vessel under any flag. As it is not in the power of the German Admiralty to maintain any surface craft in these waters, the attack can only be delivered ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... estimate made by the Japanese authorities, between April, 1903, and the outbreak of the war, Russia increased her naval and military forces in the Far East by nineteen war vessels, aggregating 82,415 tons, and 40,000 soldiers. In addition to this, one battleship, three cruisers, seven torpedo destroyers, and four torpedo boats, aggregating about 37,040 tons, were on their way to the East, and preparations had been made for increasing the land forces by 200,000 men. For further details, see Asakawa, "The Russo-Japanese Conflict" (London, ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... a sudden, frightful, heart-stilling roar of destruction; a hideous crash followed, a terrible rending, breaking, smashing, concatenation of noises, succeeded by frightful detonations, as through the gaping hole torn in the great battleship by the deadly torpedo, the water rushed upon the heated boilers, the explosion of which in turn ignited the magazines. By that deadly underwater thrust of the enemy the battleship was reduced in a few moments to a disjointed, disorganized, sinking mass of shapeless, ...
— And Thus He Came • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... actor's role, comes upon the stage in fitting scenes, keeps to the text and the impersonations which right principle and pure taste assign him. His grimaces are not for the church. He may not sing his catches when penitent souls are listening to the "Miserere," drop his torpedo-puns when life's mystery and solemnity are pressed heavily upon the soul,—be irreverent, profane, or vulgar. He must know and keep his place. But he should have his place, and have it confessed; and that place is not quite at the end of the procession of the benefactors ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... desert, however. A car was coming behind Casey much closer than fifty miles; one of those scuttling Ford delivery trucks. It locked fenders with Casey when he swung to the left. The two cars skidded as one toward the right-hand curb; caught amidships a bright yellow, torpedo-tailed runabout coming up from Main Street, and turned it neatly on its back, its four wheels spinning helplessly in the quiet, sunny morning. Casey himself was catapulted over the runabout, landing abruptly ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... himself, awakened by the master-mechanic's warning, refused to be quieted; and when, after the three hours of the slow return journey were out-worn, McCloskey came to tell him that the train was pulling into the Angels yard, the explosion of a track torpedo under the wheels made him ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... from the Midwest. But on April 19, the same object—or else a similar one—appeared over West Virginia. Early that morning the town of Sisterville was awakened by blasts of the sawmill whistle. Those who went outside their homes saw a strange sight. From a torpedo-shaped object overhead, dazzling searchlights were pointing downward, sweeping the countryside. The thing appeared to be about two hundred feet long, some thirty feet in diameter, with stubby wings and red and green lights along the sides. For almost ten minutes the aerial visitor circled ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... boys and girls deal with life aboard submarine torpedo boats, and with the adventures of the young crew, and possess, in addition to the author's surpassing knack of storytelling, a great educational value ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... with the means of affecting, in any desired sense, the functions of any physiological element of the body. It will, in short, become possible to introduce into the economy a molecular mechanism which, like a very cunningly-contrived torpedo, shall find its way to some particular group of living elements, and cause an explosion among them, leaving ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... degrees and made of armor steel twelve inches thick. One gun in each turret and the guns could swing around on four-fifths of the circle, so that every gun could be brought to bear on an enemy either to port or starboard. No other guns were carried in time of war and no cruisers, torpedo boats, or torpedoes were used, for experience in war had shown that they were useless waste of men and money. The battleship was propelled by rotary engines developing fifty thousand horsepower, driving the ship at a sustained ...
— Eurasia • Christopher Evans
... the three reminded the President that they were the owners of some torpedo or other warlike invention which, if the government would only adopt it, would soon ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... with increasing enthusiasm, "Marston will come! and Elphinstone of the torpedo! and the gallant Bloomsbury, and Billsby the brave, and all our friends of the Baltimore Gun Club! And we shall receive them with all the honors! And then we shall establish projectile trains between the Earth and the ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... to go away and study Art. Then he came home occasionally, and always saw us; but I generally contrived, on such occasions, to do some frightful thing that shocked every nerve he had, and he avoided me instinctively as he would an electric torpedo; but—do you believe?—I never had an idea of such a thing, till, when sailing from the South, so changed, I remembered things, and felt intuitively how it must have been. Shortly after I went away, he visited Europe. I had been at home a year, and now we heard ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... don't know what we've got here, but it's not a natural body. Could be anything from a torpedo on up." ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... dialectics, clearing away," says Grote, [Footnote: Grote, part ii. ch. 68; Maurice, Ancient Philosophy, p. 119.] "from the mind its mist of fancied knowledge, and, laying bare the real ignorance, produced an immediate effect like the touch of the torpedo; the newly created consciousness of ignorance was humiliating and painful, yet it was combined with a yearning after truth never before experienced. Such intellectual quickening, which could never commence until the mind had been ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... Russians made an attempt to cross the Dvina near Deveten, a few miles northwest of Dvinsk, but were repulsed. Another similar undertaking, attempted August 8, 1916, east of Friedrichstadt, met the same fate. On that day German batteries successfully bombarded Russian torpedo boats and other vessels lying off the coast of Kurland and forced them ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... the sea, and by a strange paradox the swimmer [the ship] is made to remain immovable while the wave is hurried along by movements numberless. Or, to describe the nature of another kind of fish, perchance the sailors in the aforesaid ships have grown dull and torpid by the touch of the torpedo, by which such a deadly chill is struck into the right hand of him who attacks it, that even through the spear by which it is itself wounded, it gives a shock which causes the hand of the striker to remain, though still a living substance, senseless and immovable. ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... life or serious injuries to the men employed in the shaft, it reads a new lesson as to the firing of charges of powder by electricity, and one that should be carefully noted by railway and civil engineers, and even by the torpedo service of the United States. The exact cause of the explosion has scarcely been fully and accurately set forth by the various reports of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... cheerful had fallen into a well of silence and was not to be extracted by any Hydraulic power, though she smiled like the June sky over her head. Di's peculiarities were out in full force, and she looked as if she would go off like a torpedo at a touch; but through all her moods there was a half-triumphant, half-remorseful expression in the glance she fixed on John. And Laura, once so silent, now sang like a blackbird, as she flitted to and fro; but her fitful song ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... thing has happened here. A cruiser which had come in for repair was due to go out this morning. She was ready for sea the night before, the officers and crew had all come back from short leave, and the working parties had cleared out. Then in the middle watch, when the torpedo lieutenant was testing the circuits, it was discovered that all the cables leading to the guns had been cut. Dawson has been called in, and bids me say that, if you can come down, now is the chance of your life. ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... Whatever may have been Torpedo's characteristics in days gone by, at this advanced period in his history he possessed none so striking as a stoical inaptitude for being moved. Another of his distinguishing traits was a propensity for grazing which he was ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... unique and terrifying aspect of this development was the swiftness with which these monsters could be produced. To build an ironclad took from two to four years; an airship could be put together in as many weeks. Moreover, compared with even a torpedo boat, the airship was remarkably simple to construct, given the air-chamber material, the engines, the gas plant, and the design, it was really not more complicated and far easier than an ordinary wooden boat had been a hundred years before. And now from Cape ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... project presents the further advantage of rendering it easier to put the port of Havre quickly in defense. A certain number of floating batteries, anchored behind the breakwaters and protecting the advances of torpedo boats by means of their firing, would make a formidable defense. Not having to perform any evolutions, they might without danger be invested with armor plate thicker than that of ordinary ironclads. In order to complete ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various
... use at night against torpedo and aeroplane attacks. From that mortar Armand has shot half a dozen bombs of phosphide of calcium which are hurled far into the darkness. They are so constructed that they float after a short plunge and are ignited on contact by the action ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... be indicative of an inquisitive nature. Jimmy's stood out like the handles on a loving-cup. With all this explosive material bottled up in him, he felt like a torpedo-boat ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... to Newport with me at five-thirty," were his first words. "Katy's all ready, and means to sit up till the boat gets in at two-thirty, keeping a little supper hot and hot for you. The Torpedo Station is in its glory just now, and there's going to be a great explosion on Thursday, which ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... Conti, as it is printed by Ramusio, from a Portuguese version, contains a passage not found in Poggio, in which it is alleged that a river of Ceylon, called Arotan, has a fish somewhat like the torpedo, but whose touch, instead of electrifying, produces a fever so long as it is held in the hand, relief being ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... greatest of all wars in a manner so underhanded as to suggest a trap. They knew, as no one else knew, in those quiet mid-summer days of July, that civilization was about to be suddenly and most cruelly torpedoed. The submarine was Germany and the torpedo, Austria, and the work ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... refuse to be chloroformed into silence by that hoary old subterfuge? When he first saw the great ship sailing up in the sunshine, its decks crowded with peaceful passengers, and he rose like a murderer out of his hiding-place in the bowels of the sea, what were the feelings with which he ordered the torpedo to be fired? When, having launched his bolt, he sank and then rose again, and heard the drowning cries of his victims struggling in the water, what were the emotions with which he ran away? And when ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... and deflected on a beam of alternating-current magnetism that repelled it. It did not come nearer than half a mile to the ship. The third they turned their deflecting beam on—and something went strangely wrong with the beam. It pulled that torpedo toward the ship with a sickening acceleration—and the torpedo exploded in that frightful ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... given the enemy's battle-ship every possible advantage, the reader will allow me to bring on my little torpedo-boat. In the first place Schoolcraft mentions (A.R., I., 56) twelve persons, six of them women, who helped him collect and interpret the material of the tales united in his volumes; but he does not tell us ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Russian warships on the 26th of last April, should have given the enemy matter for reflection. Although allowed an hour's time for consideration, the soldiers refused to surrender, and opened fire with their rifles on the battleships. Then, before the Kinshu Maru was blown in two by a torpedo, a number of the Japanese officers and men performed harakiri.... This strong display of the fierce old feudal spirit suggests how dearly a Russian ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... Advisory Board, approved by the Department, comprise the construction of one steel cruiser of 4,500 tons, one cruiser of 3,000 tons, two heavily armed gunboats, one light cruising gunboat, one dispatch vessel armed with Hotchkiss cannon, one armored ram, and three torpedo boats. The general designs, all of which are calculated to meet the existing wants of the service, are now well advanced, and the construction of the vessels can be undertaken as soon as you ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Chester A. Arthur • Chester A. Arthur
... demands greater patience and dexterity, for the dugong is a wary animal and shy, to be approached only with the exercise of artful caution. An inadvertent splash of the paddle or a miss with the harpoon, and the game is away with a torpedo-like swirl. To be successful in the sport the black must be familiar with the life-history of the creature to a certain extent—understanding its peregrinations and the reason for them—the strength and trend of currents and the ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... organs both near the head and tail in other non-electric fish. He set to work, and, by Jove, he has found them! ('On an organ in the Skate, which appears to be the homologue of the electrical organ of the Torpedo,' by R. McDonnell, 'Nat. Hist. Review,' 1861, page 57.) so that some of the difficulty is removed; and is it not satisfactory that my hypothetical notions should have led to pretty discoveries? McDonnell seems very cautious; he says, years ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... artillery fire by any means. Fritz had a large and varied assortment of "Minenwerfer" with which to entertain us at all hours, day and night. A good many people, even among the soldiers themselves, think that Minenwerfer or "Minnie" for short, is the name of the projectile or torpedo, while, as a matter of fact, it is the instrument which throws it; a literal translation being "mine-thrower." In the same way they often speak of the shells thrown by trench mortars as "trench mortars" themselves. Now the family of "Minnies" is a large one and includes every device, ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... that the garrison was wavering. The Semionovsky regiment had already decided to submit to the orders of the Socialist Revolutionary party; the crews of the torpedo-boats on the Neva were shaky. Seven members were at once appointed to continue ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... "Whoever heard of such a thing?" but she ran out to see what it was, and at that moment the cabbage bounded right in front of the pen, hit a big stone, burst open with a noise like a torpedo, and out rolled Buddy Pigg, over and over, just like a pumpkin. But, believe me, he wasn't hurt the least mite, but he ...
— Buddy And Brighteyes Pigg - Bed Time Stories • Howard R. Garis
... helped him into his cumbersome, heavily-padded armor. They checked his instruments, making sure that the protective devices of the suit were functioning at full efficiency. Then all three went out to the flitter. A tiny speedster, really; a torpedo bearing the stubby wings and the ludicrous tail-surfaces, the multifarious driving-, braking-, side-, top-, and under-jets so characteristic of the tricky, cranky, but ultra-maneuverable breed. But this one had something that the ordinary speedster or flitter did not carry; spaced around the needle ...
— The Vortex Blaster • Edward Elmer Smith
... embarked at Liverpool, on board the Mistress of the Seas, the S.S. Olympic, the largest passenger boat afloat. For three days we lay in the channel, awaiting our escort, four torpedo boat destroyers, and, finally, as the wheel of the mighty leviathan commenced churning the waters, I knew we were really ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... however, been much interested in the things about me. Forward, the torpedo-discharge tubes and other apparatus about the little doors in the vessel's nose made it look somewhat like the shield used in boring a ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... like cheap tin-plate, and weighs but a fraction of other substances. It is largely replacing brass and copper in all departments of industry — especially where dead weight has to be moved about, and lightness is synonymous with economy — for instance, in bed-plates for torpedo-boat engines, internal fittings for ships instead of wood, complete boats for portage, motor-car parts and boiling-pans for confectionery and in chemical works. The British Admiralty employ it to save weight in the Navy, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... battleships, cruisers, torpedo-boats, the Royal yacht, the Admiralty yacht, and, most interesting of all, Nelson's ship, the Victory. As if the steamer knew that a crowd of eager Cubs were longing to see all round the Victory, it went out of its way to steam ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... the giant fish, long since eliminated from the rest of the seas, were breeding in some secret area of the far and desolate southern rocks, it was his business to know it. No fish could catch his high-powered torpedo, while his electric spears packed a lethal jolt. Probably, he thought, a rumor of the poor fisher folk who worked the southern fringe areas. What else could you expect from such types, who had never even learned to read ...
— Join Our Gang? • Sterling E. Lanier
... heavy fortifications whose walls seemed to run down into the sea, and, beyond, the steep slopes, upon which the picturesque city of Valetta is built. A few naval vessels were within sight of the Transport. A wicked looking submarine and a French torpedo boat passed close by. ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... It was believed that the Confederate ram "Raleigh" was in the Cape Fear River above the town of Smithville, the scene of the last adventure. Cushing obtained permission from his superior officer to ascend the river, and try to blow up the ram with a torpedo. On the night of the 23d of June he started, taking with him Jones and Howarth, the officers who had been with him in the previous trip, and fifteen men. The night was pitchy dark, and all went well as they passed the fort and the little town of Smithville. Fifteen miles from the river's mouth, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... superiority. No neighbour mind serves as a mirror to reflect the generous confidence he felt within himself; and perhaps the man never yet existed, who could maintain his enthusiasm to its full vigour, in the midst of this kind of solitariness. He is touched with the torpedo of mediocrity. I believe that nothing which Mary produced during this period, is marked with those daring flights, which exhibit themselves in the little fiction she composed just before its commencement. Among effusions of a nobler cast, I find occasionally ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... Gallipoli beach. For the Southland incident was duplicated in almost every particular on the Ballarat in April, 1917. This story was enacted in the waters of the English Channel, and there were no casualties, for the work of rescue by torpedo-boats was made easy as each man calmly waited his turn and enlivened the monotony meanwhile with ragtime, and again and again did the strains of "Australia Will Be There!" ring out over the waters. As they sang "So Long, Letty," many substituted ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... king! He's like a torpedo blow-up under the engine-room. The bank'll sink if he stays aboard another month, I do believe. And yet," he added, with a shake of the head, "I don't see but he'll have to stay; there ain't another available candidate for the job in sight. ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... that afternoon, should be. One fact only was publicly known, and that was that the English fleet, only lately dismissed from its manoeuvres and naval review, had vanished. There were guard ships, old cruisers and what not, at certain ports, torpedo-boats roamed the horizons of Deal and Portsmouth, but the great fleet, the swift forts of sea-power, had gone, disappearing no one knew where, into the fine weather haze that brooded over the midsummer sea. There perhaps was an indication of what the decision would be, yet there was no ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... Lusitania left New York harbor. This conjunction was bound to appear intentional rather than fortuitous, and even to-day the majority of Americans believe that I must have known beforehand of the design to torpedo the Lusitania. ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... were almost a joyous emerald green under the sparkle of the sun in the early afternoon; the estuary of the Thames was alive with white and brown sail swelling full-bloodedly to the drive of a care-free, joyful breeze; torpedo-boats and destroyers sped in and out from Sheerness with the supple strength of greyhounds unleashed, tossing the blue waters in curling locks of foam from their bows; the open sea sparkled and glinted and danced with the joy of life in ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... about ten yards off and they were in the middle of the canal. The Mungana had passed it. It was in a line with Alan's head. Oh Heavens! a sudden smother of foam, a rush like that of a torpedo, and set low down between two curving waves, a flash of gold. Then a gurgling, inhuman laugh and a weight upon his back. Down went Alan, down ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... her wireless, that she brought herself into position to fire on the Wolf, and that preparations were being made to use her gun. If the Hitachi had manoeuvred at all, it was simply so that she should not[1] present her broadside as a target for a torpedo from ...
— Five Months on a German Raider - Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf' • Frederic George Trayes
... too feel that this can't last. We sit here talking, and leave everything to Mangan and to chance and to the devil. Think of the powers of destruction that Mangan and his mutual admiration gang wield! It's madness: it's like giving a torpedo to a badly brought up child to play ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... Zeppelin air ship, M. Santos Dumont's balloon was probably attracting most of the attention of experts. The account given of this air vessel by the Daily Express was somewhat startling. The balloon proper was compared to a large torpedo. Three feet beneath this hangs the gasoline motor which is to supply the power. The propeller is 12 feet in diameter, and is revolved so rapidly by the motor that the engine frequently gets red hot. The only accommodation for ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... of the subject. Dulness has other avatars besides the literary. In the last and finest book, Pope attempts to complete his plan by exhibiting the influence of dulness upon theology and science. The huge torpedo benumbs every faculty of the human mind, and paralyses all the Muses, except 'mad Mathesis,' which, indeed, does not carry on so internecine a war with the general enemy. The design is commendable, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... the complicated curricula, of which more anon. Lying in the still waters of the dock, alongside the comparatively big grey cruiser, were the trim little hulls of a numerous flotilla of 20-knot motor launches, newly arrived from Canada, with wicked-looking 13-pounder high-angle guns, stumpy torpedo-boat masts and brand-new White Ensigns and brass-bound decks. These were the advance guard of a fleet of over 500 similar craft, to the command of which many of the officers being trained would, after a period of practical experience ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... le Claire sat wild-eyed and excited, and flew fearfully to Judge Blodgett and the professor, when Mr. Brassfield went free, with Alderson at heel. And all the time, as the crew of a ship carry on the routine of drill while the torpedo is speeding for her hull, these social amenities went on all unconscious ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick |
