"Combustible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... soil, and bound together by thongs of bamboo. Cutting a passage through these, we entered the place, which contained perhaps a hundred houses, neatly built of wicker-work, and having their high conical roofs thatched with palmetto-leaves. Such edifices were in the highest degree combustible, and being set on fire, it was worth while for a lover of the picturesque to watch the flames, as they ran up the conical roofs, and meeting at the apex, whirled themselves ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... its name was the first to show that combustion is due to union with oxygen. Previous to his time combustion was supposed to be due to the presence of a substance or principle called phlogiston. One substance was thought to be more combustible than another because it contained more phlogiston. Coal, for example, was thought to be very rich in phlogiston. The ashes left after combustion would not burn because all the phlogiston had escaped. If the phlogiston could be restored in any way, the substance would then become ...
— An Elementary Study of Chemistry • William McPherson
... Near the temple of Isis she had erected a building, which was seemingly designed for a sepulchre. Hither she moved her treasure and most valuable effects, covering them with torches, fagots, and other combustible matter. 11. This sepulchre she designed to answer a double purpose, as well to screen her from the sudden resentments of Antony, as to make Augustus believe that she would burn all her treasure, in case he refused proper terms of capitulation. Here, ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... the gospel and preacher of genuine regeneration, said of Jesus that "he should baptize with the Holy Ghost and fire," thus using a most powerful symbol to characterize the nature of the work of the Holy Ghost. Everyone is familiar with the action of fire; it burns everything combustible with which ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... much quicker than that supplied by seed trees afterward. Nor is the system feasible where there is much fir or other species less fire-resisting than pine. It is dangerous in practice except where there is very little combustible matter on the ground and fire is generally easy of control, and exceedingly dangerous to advocate because serves as a pretext and example for indiscriminate carelessness with fire under all conditions. Finally, the ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen
... doubt, being driven in some cases to look to the direct action of the external conditions of life as sufficient, and in other cases to feel a profound conviction that these have played a quite subordinate part, of not more importance than the nature of the spark which ignites a mass of combustible matter. ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... War shall send to the army on the coast of Rochelle all the combustible materials necessary to set fire to the forests and underwood ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... subordinate importance in comparison with the nature of the organism in determining each particular form of variation; perhaps of not more importance than the nature of the spark, by which a mass of combustible matter is ignited, has in determining ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... temporary, subsiding after the cause that produced it has passed away, and leaving the kind peasant to the natural, affectionate, and generous impulses of his character. But poor Paddy, unfortunately, is as combustible a material in politics or religion as in fighting—thinking it his duty to take the weak side*, without any other consideration than because it is ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... went under mahogany first, though Colonel Blood scarce had wit enough left to count the winnings of his wager. Young Lieutenant Blood stood up on his chair and bawled out some monstrous bad-writ verse to "a fair-dark lady"—whatever that meant—"who was as cold as ice and combustible as gunpowder." Healths were drunk to His Majesty King Charles, to His Royal Highness the Duke of York, to our councillors of the Company, to our governors of the fur-posts, and to the captains. Then the Duke of York himself lifted the cup to Pierre Radisson's honour; whereat the young courtiers ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... game to a fire is a far cry, but fire in the Philippines has such distinctive features that I cannot pass it without a word. The lack of all facilities for combating it makes it an ever present menace. The combustible materials of which houses are built, and their close crowding together, tend to spread it rapidly; while the thatched roofs make even the burning of an isolated house a danger ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... taxed for the support of customs officers of solar heat, we should prize it more than we do. Not that I should like to look upon the sun as a job, and have the proper regulation of its temperature get into politics, where we already have so much combustible stuff; but we take it quite too much as a matter of course, and, having it free, do not reckon it among the reasons for gratitude. Many people shut it out of their houses as if it were an enemy, watch its descent upon the carpet as if it were only a thief of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Indians lay concealed, while three or four who made the attack attempted thereby to decoy the whites outside of the defenses. Failing in this, they set fire to an old fence and corn-crib, and two stables, both long enough built to be thoroughly combustible. These had previously protected their approach in that direction. Captain Asa Reese was in command of our little fort. 'Boys,' said he, 'some of you must run over to Hinkston's or Harrison's.' These were one and a half and two miles ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... to the slave. Reason is imprisoned here, and passions run wild. Like the fires of the prairie, once lighted, they are at the mercy of every wind, and must burn, till they have consumed all that is combustible within their remorseless grasp. Capt. Anthony could be kind, and, at times, he even showed an affectionate disposition. Could the reader have seen him gently leading me by the hand—as he sometimes did—patting me on the head, ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... the best representative of the older school in either branch of Congress, gave a page of his diary to one of Douglas's early speeches. "His face was convulsed,"—so the merciless diary runs,—"his gesticulation frantic, and he lashed himself into such a heat that if his body had been made of combustible matter it would have burnt out. In the midst of his roaring, to save himself from choking, he stripped and cast away his cravat, unbuttoned his waistcoat, and had the air and aspect of a half-naked pugilist. And this man comes from a judicial bench, and passes for an eloquent orator!" ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... because they would not waken the people faster than they could master them; but the fire began to waken them fast enough, and our fellows were glad to keep a little together in bodies; for the fire grew so raging, all the houses being made of light combustible stuff, that they could hardly bear the street between them. Their business was to follow the fire, for the surer execution: as fast as the fire either forced the people out of those houses which were burning, ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... quench it, but to remove their goods, and leave all to the fire, and having seen it get as far as the Steele-yard, and the wind mighty high, and driving it into the City: and every thing after so long a drought proving combustible, even the very stones of churches, and among other things, the poor steeple [St, Lawrence Poultney, of which Thomas Elborough was Curate.] by which pretty Mrs. — lives, and whereof my old schoolfellow Elborough ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... regions of felicity which were his. The son of Pandu burnt the body of his uncle together with those four wives of his, using diverse kinds of scents and perfumed wood. As the funeral pyre blazed up, a loud sound was heard of the burning wood and other combustible materials, along with the clear chant of Samans and the wailing of the citizens and others who witnessed the rite. After it was all over, the boys of the Vrishni and Andhaka races, headed by Vajra, as also the ladies, offered oblations of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... strange companion; "it is only imprudence that makes victims. Olivari, who perished at Orleans, ascended in a mongolfier made of paper; his car, suspended below the chafing-dish, and ballasted with combustible materials, became a prey to the flames! Olivari fell, and was killed. Mosment ascended at Lille, on a light platform; an oscillation made him lose his equilibrium. Mosment fell, and was killed. Bittorf, at Manheim, saw his paper balloon take fire in the air! Bittorf fell, and was killed. ...
— A Voyage in a Balloon (1852) • Jules Verne
... continued blazing, after it reached the bottom. He then dropped in another piece upon it, which took fire. He then gathered some dry sticks, and put in; and, finding that the flame was increasing, he proceeded to gather all the dry and combustible matter, which he could find around, and put them in, so that in a short time he had a fine blaze, a foot above the top of the stump; and the inside of the stump itself ...
— Rollo's Philosophy. [Air] • Jacob Abbott
... this Description which carry in them a greater Measure of Probability, and are such as might possibly have happened. Of this kind is his first mounting in the Smoke that rises from the Infernal Pit, his falling into a Cloud of Nitre, and the like combustible Materials, that by their Explosion still hurried him forward in his Voyage; his springing upward like a Pyramid of Fire, with his laborious Passage through that Confusion of Elements which ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... became fanaticism. The conspirators concerted together, and disciplined and organised the city. Individual and distorted passions kindled the mighty and virtuous love of the people for the triumph of democracy. It is thus that in a conflagration the most tainted substances oft light the fire; the combustible matter is foul, but the flames pure; the flame of the Revolution was liberty; the factious might dim, they ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... the rebellion had been more durable and sanguinarie' But as soon as the news of Argyll's landing on the west coast came, this is his note, 'Argile, minding the former animosities and discontents in the country, thought to have found us all alike combustible tinder, that he had no more adoe then to hold the match to us, and we would all blow up in a rebellion; but the tymes are altered, and the peeple are scalded so severely with the former insurrections, that they are frighted to ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... have gradually led to the use of coke, brays or small coke, and peat. An abundance of coals existed in the neighbourhood: by rejecting those of inferior quality, and coking the others with great care, a combustible was obtained better fitted even than charcoal itself for the fusion of that particular kind of ore which is found in the coal-measures. Thus we find Darby's most favourite charge for his furnaces to have been five baskets of coke, two of brays, and one of peat; next followed the ore, and then ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... minutes the whole of the upper part of the pyre was ablaze, and the basin, with its crowds of splendidly attired and mounted officials, was brilliantly illuminated by the ruddy glare. I think the bier, and possibly the body also, must have been treated with some highly combustible preparation, for I noticed that the moment the flames reached them they seized upon them with avidity, so that within ten minutes of the first kindling the bier and the body were both enwrapped in a roaring volume of ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... made by sea and were repulsed, but during the years 716-717 A.D. the city had to face a combined attack by a Moslem navy and army. The eastern emperor, Leo the Isaurian, conducted a heroic defense, using with much effectiveness the celebrated mixture known as "Greek fire." This combustible, probably composed of sulphur, naphtha, and quicklime, was poured or hurled on the enemy's ships in order to burn them. "Greek fire," the rigors of an uncommonly severe winter, and timely aid from the Bulgarians at length compelled the Arabs to beat a retreat. ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... alone I might call myself the household god of a hundred families. Far be it from me, also, to hint, my respectable friends, at the show of dirty faces which you would present without my pains to keep you clean. Nor will I remind you how often, when the midnight bells make you tremble for your combustible town, you have fled to the town-pump and found me always at my post firm amid the confusion and ready to drain my vital current in your behalf. Neither is it worth while to lay much stress on my claims to a medical diploma as the physician whose simple ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the presence of a committee of the Academy of Sciences, two parallel rows of straw and brushwood supported by iron wires, were formed at the distance of 3 feet from each other, and extended 30 feet in length. When this combustible mass was set on fire, it was necessary to stand at a distance of 8 or 10 yards to avoid the heat. The flames from both the rows seemed to fill up the whole space between them, and rose to the height of 9 or 10 feet. At this moment six firemen, clothed in the incombustible dresses, and marching at ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... Colony kolonio. Colossal kolosa. Color koloro. Color kolori. Color (complexion) vizagxokoloro. Colorless senkolora. Colt cxevalido. Column kolono. Comb kombi. Comb kombilo. Combat batalo. Combat batali. Combatant batalanto. Combine kombini. Combustible brulebla. Combustion brulado. Come veni. Come (after) postveni. Come (back) reveni. Comedian komedianto. Comedy komedio. Comely gracia, beleta. Comet kometo. Comfort komforti. Comfort komforto. Comic ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... a dorf about half a league from the town, which he observed, almost in a moment, to flash from one end of the dorf to the other, consuming all in its way,—and thus it was said to have been in these suburbs. The reason thereof is the combustible matter whereof their houses are built, being of fir timber and boards, which, especially being old, do suddenly take fire, and violently burn, hard to be quenched, few houses escaping, especially in the dorfs, where one is on fire; which causeth more than ordinary care in the inhabitants of all ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... destroying the houses still uninjured by secretly introducing petroleum balls and fusees into the cellars. I saw a soldier suddenly seize a man as he was apparently harmlessly walking along the street; his pockets were emptied and found to contain cartridges and combustible balls of various sizes. Another soldier and a sailor rushed to the spot; the latter drew his revolver, and I expected would have shot the man then and there, but he was satisfied on seeing his comrade prick him sharply with his bayonet. The two soldiers then hurried the ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... Chicory had, however, gathered together a goodly portion of combustible wood, and there was plenty more at hand, so that a roaring fire was soon casting its light away from the wood, which somewhat sheltered them behind; and as soon as some of the good-sized pieces of bush were well ablaze, Chicory began to send them flying in the directions where ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... their march, had been thought so necessary a measure by all the chieftains, that even Oubacha himself was the first to authorize the act by his own example. He seized a torch previously prepared with materials the most durable as well as combustible, and steadily applied it to the timbers of his own palace. Nothing was saved from the general wreck except the portable part of the domestic utensils, and that part of the woodwork which could be applied to the manufacture of the long Tartar lances. This chapter in their memorable day's ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... the water out of the glass jar into the earthenware one. In one second follows a series of sharp reports from inside the jar, which seems suddenly to have become filled with highly combustible crackers. The Professor drops the jar as if he had burnt his fingers, and the cracking and popping go on inside. Ladies rise frightened. Layder ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... De Banyan flew to the rescue, and made a most enthusiastic attempt to check the fire; but the raging element was now past control. The flames spread through the combustible material which had been stored on the deck; and they were compelled to abandon the ill-starred steamer with the utmost precipitation, in order to save ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... all, but did not therefore draw back; and looking fearlessly at the pile heaped with all these combustible materials intended for his martyrdom, he did not any the more cease from his work. He resisted, and ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... then of the public peace. The matrons of Boston were transformed into a synod of slanderous praters, whose inquisitional deliberations and audacious decrees, instilled their venom into the innermost recesses of society; and the spirits of a great majority of the citizen being in that combustible state in which a feeble spark will suffice to kindle a formidable conflagration, the whole Colony was inflamed and distracted by the incontinence of female ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... spend another winter upon Gallia, some means could not be devised by which the dreariness of a second residence in the recesses of the volcano might be escaped. Would not another exploring expedition possibly result in the discovery of a vein of coal or other combustible matter, which could be turned to account in warming some erection which they might hope to put up? A prolonged existence in their underground quarters was felt to be monotonous and depressing, and although it might be all very well for a man like Professor Rosette, absorbed in astronomical ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... regarded the air as playing a very important part in combustions; he said—"Airs are divided into two categories; an air for the divine flame, which is the soul; and a material air which is the nourisher of sensible fire, and the basis of combustible matter." Sentences like that I have just quoted are found here and there in the writings of the earlier and later alchemists; now and again we also find statements which may be interpreted, in the light of the fuller knowledge we now have, as indicating at least suspicions that the atmosphere is ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... with difficulty that it could be stopped. We crossed the frontier line a short distance from camp, and entered a dense jungle of thorny acacia, with long dry grass almost choking the trees. They were dry and stunted, and when we dropped a few lights amongst such combustible material, the fire was splendid beyond description. How the flames surged through the withered grass. We were forced to pause and admire the magnificent sight. The wall of flame tore along with inconceivable rapidity, and the blinding volumes of smoke obscured the country for ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... eyes, and an odd smell of burning assailed her nostrils. Fire, was it fire? She remembered that Wyvis had once said that the Red House would burn like tinder if it was ever set alight. The old woodwork was very combustible, and there was a great deal of it, ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... bonfire no more—no, not at all; nor the fireworks neither—no, nothing of no kind of the sort." All this in his natural voice: then, swelling in dignity and in diction, "but, for the accumulated pile of combustibles, I say—for the combustible pile that you have accumulated, that you may not be deprived of the merit of doing a good action, the materials of which it is composed, that is to say, the logs of wood, and the bavins of furze, with ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... showing that they over-drink their allowance. The captain spoke pretty sharply to them.' It is true: I have the remark in my old note-book; I got it of the third mate in the hospital at Honolulu. But there is not room for it here, and it is too combustible, anyway. Besides, the third mate admired it, and what he admired he was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... erected on elevated buildings. As this was not sufficiently demonstrative he succeeded at length in drawing the lightning from the clouds by means of a kite and silken string, so as to ignite spirits and other combustible substances by an electric spark similar to those from a Leyden jar. To utilize his discovery of the identity of lightning with electricity he erected lightning-rods to protect buildings, that is, to convey the lightning from the overhanging clouds through conductors to the ground. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... those which do not. The metals were considered to be composed of sulphur and mercury. These substances are themselves compounds, but they act as elements in the composition of metals. Sulphur represented their combustible aspect, and also that which gave them their solid form; while mercury was that to which their weight and powers ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... sixty miles above the surface, and was observed at different extremities of the kingdom. The sound of an explosion was heard through Devon and Cornwall, and along the opposite coast of Bretagne. Halley conjectured this and similar displays to proceed from combustible vapors aggregated on the outskirts of the atmosphere, and suddenly set on fire by some unknown cause. But since his time, the fact has been established, of the actual fall of heavy bodies to the earth ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... delegates and the formal action of conventions, and in all cases except that of Texas the question was conclusively passed upon by conventions. By every means they "fired the Southern heart," which was notoriously combustible; they stirred up a great tumult of sentiment; they made thunderous speeches; they kept distinguished emissaries moving to and fro; they celebrated each success with an uproar of cannonading, with bonfires, illuminations, and processions; they appealed to those chivalrous ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... affords clues to the method of Nature in the non-physical, or supersensuous world. But apart from that, it is incredible that a mind like Emerson's took no interest in natural knowledge for its own sake. The fact that two visible and inodorous gases like hydrogen and oxygen—one combustible and the other the supporter of combustion—when chemically combined produce water, which extinguishes fire, is intensely interesting as affording us a glimpse of the contradictions and paradoxes that abound everywhere in ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... wandering night and day blindfold, down the long, dark, lampless avenue of destruction, and destined never more to visit Dalkeith again, except with a wooden stump and a brass virl, or to have his head blown off his shoulders, mast high, like ingan peelings, with some exploding earthquake of combustible gunpowder.—Call in the laddie, I say, and see what he would like to ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... department are located at 127 Mercer street, in a handsome building known as Fireman's Hall. Here are the offices of the Commissioners, the Chief Engineer, Secretary, Medical officer, Telegraph Bureau, Bureau of Combustible materials, and Fireman's Lyceum. The Lyceum contains a library of over 4000 volumes, and a collection of engravings, documents, and relics relating to the old Fire Department. All fines exacted of firemen, and those imposed on citizens for violating the ordinances relating to ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... a hut upon my settlement, about forty yards from the creek of St. John, till I could build my house, and lodging {19} for my people. As my hut was composed of very combustible materials, I caused a fire to be made at a distance, about half way from the creek, to avoid accidents: which occasioned an adventure, that put me in mind of the prejudices they have in Europe, from the relations that are commonly current. The ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... pipes laid by the side of the ordinary gas mains, it would be possible to fix small Drummond lights in place of the gas burners now used in houses; this would greatly reduce the consumption of gas and increase the light obtained, or even render possible the employment of cheap non-illuminating combustible gases other than coal gas ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various
... Esquimaux live and make themselves comfortable in huts of ice or snow, and with no other combustible but oil. ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... laid her alongside L'Orient. One particular only I shall add to the known account of the memorable engagement between these ships, and this I received from Sir Alexander Ball himself. He had previously made a combustible preparation, but which, from the nature of the engagement to be expected, he had purposed to reserve for the last emergency. But just at the time when, from several symptoms, he had every reason to believe that the enemy would soon strike to him, ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... another, the thyroid may be compared to the accelerator of an automobile. That is a rough and superficial comparison because an accelerator lets in more of the fuel to be burned up, while the thyroid makes the fuel more combustible. It thus resembles more the primer, for a rich mixture of gasoline and air burns at a greater velocity than a poor one. But the action of thyroid could really be simulated only by some substance that could be introduced into the best possible of gasoline mixtures, to increase its combustibility ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... they pillaged and ransacked every church and monastery: they broke the painted windows and organs, destroyed the images, stole the ecclesiastical ornaments, sold the shrines, committed pulpits, chests, books, and whatever was combustible, to the fire; and finally, after having wreaked their vengeance upon eyery thing that could be made the object of it, they went boldly to the town-hall to demand the wages for their labors.—In the course of these outrages the tomb of the Conqueror at one abbey, ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... Dr. Lindsley has compiled a table of nineteen instances, from the Dictionnaire de Medecine,—not, however, of spontaneous combustion exactly, but of something akin to it; namely, the rapid ignition of the human body (which per se is not combustible) by contact with flame, as a consequence of the saturation of its tissues ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853 • Various
... railings of the main gallery construction are likewise of ornate treatment. All exterior doors and trim are of metal and all interior carpenter work is done with Kalomein iron protection, so that the building, in its strictest sense, will contain no combustible material. ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous
... crime of setting fire to the city, as for their hatred of human kind. They died in torments, and their torments were imbittered by insult and derision. Some were nailed on crosses; others sewn up in the skins of wild beasts, and exposed to the fury of dogs; others again, smeared over with combustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate the darkness of the night. The gardens of Nero were destined for the melancholy spectacle, which was accompanied with a horse-race and honored with the presence of the emperor, who mingled with the populace in the dress and attitude ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... square of Caxamarca. It was the evening of the twenty-ninth of August, 1533. The clanking of chains was heard as the victim, manacled hand and foot, toiled painfully over the stone pavement of the square. He was bound by chains to the stake; the combustible fagots were piled up around him. Friar Vincent then, it is said, holding up the cross before the victim, told him that if he would embrace Christianity he should be spared the cruel death by the flames, and experience in its stead only the painless death ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... Tommy, with a smile, that he believed that would do, he struck it several times against the back of his knife, and thus produced several sparks of fire. "This," said Harry, "will be sufficient to light a fire, if we can but find something of a sufficiently combustible nature to kindle from these sparks." He then collected the driest leaves he could find, with little decayed pieces of wood, and piling them into a heap, endeavoured to kindle a blaze by the sparks which he continually struck from his knife and the flint. But ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... had also a preparation sent, as they said, by the convention from Paris, which seems to have been of the nature of the Greek fire; for it became liquid when it was discharged, and water would not extinguish its flames. This combustible was concealed with great care in the captured ships; like the red-hot shot, it had been found useless in battle. Admiral Hotham's action saved Corsica for the time; but the victory had been incomplete, ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... heaped over them to a considerable height, and then Ghee, or melted preserved butter, poured on the top. Two bamboos were then put over them and held fast down, and fire put to the pile, which immediately blazed very fiercely, owing to the dry and combustible materials of which it was composed. No sooner was the fire kindled than all the people set up a great shout—Hurree-Bol, Hurree-Bol, which is a common shout of joy, and an invocation of Hurree, or Seeb. It was impossible to have heard the woman had she groaned, or even cried aloud, on ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... That horn is combustible everyone who has watched the fitting of a hot shoe knows. That it is a bad conductor of heat, the absence of bad after-effects ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... possible to cut a way out by Carignan towards Montmedy, and then this outlet reclosed. This refuge only remained, Sedan; Sedan encumbered with carts, with wagons, with carriages, with hospital huts; a heap of combustible matter. This dying agony of heroes lasted ten hours. They refused to surrender, they grew indignant, they wished to complete their death, so bravely begun. They were delivered ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... illumination but for safety. When the visitors have arrived on the lower platform, which is near the middle of the eastern side against the wall, the guide, who has not descended the steps, lights a basket of shavings or other quick combustible on the platform above. The effect is instantaneous and magical. Suddenly from an obscurity so profound that only the outline of the nearest columns can be faintly discerned by the flicker of a candle, the entire maze of columns ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... community, instead of serving for mutual defence, serves only to increase the danger. Such a system is like a city, where trades that require constant fires are much exercised, where the houses are built of combustible materials, and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... well pelted, soundly whipped, and speedily forgotten. In 1678 or 1679 there would have been an outbreak if those men had never been born. For years things had been steadily tending to such a consummation. Society was one vast mass of combustible matter. No mass so vast and so combustible ever waited ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... ending in le commonly have the accent on the first syllable, as amicable, unless the second syllable have a vowel before two consonants, as combustible. ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... after that, on the 30th of July, 1844, the same destroying spirit Joe Smith was allowed to attack me directly, to show how he would be able to kill a man in a minute, if he would be permitted. But he was seized by my guardian and cast into a combustible matter which was by his infernal electricity instantly kindled. George Karle was permitted to be drowned, because the time for establishing our centre had not yet arrived, and Karle had an important mission in the ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar
... fortunes to the mercy of the open sea, and by this time our clothing had become so dilapidated that the necessity for something to replace it was growing urgent. Therefore, while I busied myself daily upon the task of conveying combustible material to the summit of the Peak—as we had named the highest point on the island—that we might be able to kindle a fire and raise a big smoke in the event of a sail heaving in sight, and while Julius undertook to find a daily supply of food for the party, the women ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... introduce to the readers of the "Irish Monthly," and who found the heat of a short Northern summer simply "intolerable," the tropics and their environs rather allure me. True, soldiers and old residents speak of places between which and the lower regions there is but a sheet of non-combustible tissue paper. Nevertheless, the writer who has lived in both places would rather, as a matter of choice, summer in the Tropics than winter in ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... stings of the flesh. Know me come eat with me. Royal sturgeon high sheriff, Coffey, the butcher, right to venisons of the forest from his ex. Send him back the half of a cow. Spread I saw down in the Master of the Rolls' kitchen area. Whitehatted chef like a rabbi. Combustible duck. Curly cabbage a la duchesse de Parme. Just as well to write it on the bill of fare so you can know what you've eaten. Too many drugs spoil the broth. I know it myself. Dosing it with Edwards' desiccated soup. Geese stuffed silly for ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... debris was used to fill up Long Wharf. The fire "broke out," says an account in the Boston News-Letter, "in an old tenement within a backyard in Cornhill, near the First Meeting-house, occasioned by the carelessness of a poor Scottish woman by using fire near a parcel of ocum, chips, and other combustible rubbish." ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... seems to have been attracted by the spire of the Steeple, which—running up from the centre of a four-sided roof rising in the form of a pyramid—was rapidly conducted by means of a large quantity of iron used for the security of the timbers, to the shingles and other combustible materials of three of the corners of the building, almost directly under the eave. There entirely inaccesible for some minutes to any efforts which could be made use of for the purpose of quenching ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... There is in London an almost universal absence of wooden additions and outbuildings, and the New York ash barrel or box kept in the house is also unknown. The local authorities in London keep a strict watch over the manufacture or storage of combustible materials in populous parts of the city. Although overhead telegraph wires are multiplying to an alarming extent in London, their number is nothing to be compared to their bewildering multitude in New York, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... starch group or the sugar group, are composed chiefly of three elements: carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen; they are therefore combustible, and are great energy producers. On the other hand, they are worthless for cell growth and repair, and if we limited our diet to carbohydrates, we should be like a man who had fuel but no ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... be denied, however, that this gaseous oxyd of carbon (CO) is inflammable ... and is essentially different from all other oxyds, none of which are combustible. ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... labour shall be bestowed on the public roads—the best modes of conducting our schools and colleges—the comparative merits of the candidates for office, or the policy of some proposed change in the laws. Man is made, you know, of very combustible materials, and may be kindled as effectually by a spark falling at the right time, in the right place, as when within ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... the night was warm, for I happened to know that a good deal of the cargo which we were carrying was of a highly combustible character, such as furniture, pianos, Manchester goods, and the like, to say nothing of several cases of sporting ammunition. I knew that if once the fire happened to get a good hold upon such material as that the chances were all against our being able to master ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... Bombay, to avoid a feeling of apprehension concerning a catastrophe, which sooner or later seems certain to happen, and which nothing short of a miracle appears to prevent from taking place every night; I mean the destruction of the whole by fire. All the houses are constructed of the most combustible materials, and the greater number belonging to the native quarter are thatched. Though contrary to law, many of the warehouses contain gunpowder, while the immense quantity of oil and spirits stored up in them would render ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... substance capable of rendering great service to humanity. The injury which it causes is the result of its misuse. Though unfit for introduction into the human body, except in the most guarded manner, it is adapted to a great variety of uses outside of the body. A combustible substance which is readily convertible into a gas, it may be substituted for gasoline in the cooking of food, lighting of dwellings, and the running of machinery. As a solvent for gums, resins, essential oils, etc., it is used in the preparation ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... a large rambling Mansion. The pillars were rotten, the galleries tumbling down, the thatch dry and combustible, and there was only one door. Suddenly, one day, there was a smell of fire: the old man rushed out. To his horror he saw that the thatch was aflame, the rotten pillars were catching fire one by one, and the rafters were burning like tinder. But, inside, the children went ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... negative electricity—oxygen—produces flame; and the dilative force, or positive electricity—hydrogen—produces warmth. And lastly, salt is the equilibrium or compound of the two former. So taken, salt, sulphur, and mercury are equivalent to the combustive, the combustible, and the combust, under one or other of which all known bodies, or ponderable substances, may be classed ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... exception of a few showers towards the close of that month, continues, with little interruption, throughout the full season. The immense mass of vegetation with which the fertile soil loads itself during the summer is suddenly withered, and the whole earth is covered with combustible materials. A single spark of fire falling anywhere upon these plains at such a time, instantly kindles a blaze that spreads on every side, and continues its destructive course as long as it finds fuel, these fires sweeping on with a rapidity ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... parching heat of summer, and especially after the excessive dryness occasioned by the hot winds, the whole face of the country becomes, as it were, combustible, and bush-fires have at such times burst forth apparently spontaneously, and spread with great rapidity. The "Black Thursday" of the colony, some fifteen years since, when fire covered many hundreds of ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... thing that the root-house had been finished, as it formed a secure store-house for their goods, and could also be made available as a hiding-place from the Indians, in time of need. The boys carefully scraped away all the combustible matter from its vicinity and that of the house; but the rapid increase of the fire now warned them to hurry down to join Catharine and the young Mohawk, who had gone off to the lake shore with such things as they ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... blocks away to the westward they could see flames shooting from the windows of a warehouse. Its contents must have been highly combustible, for they were burning like chaff in a furnace draught. As they stood and watched the conflagration a second explosion occurred, and so close at hand that the ground seemed to rock beneath their feet. And with that Nanna's heart grew faint within her, ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... thing was burned. Animal bodies, full of moisture, glowed awhile and then remained charred wrecks. Wood and other easily combustible things burned to ashes. On the ground lay the bodies, amidst heaps of hot mud, heaps of gleaming ashes and piles of volcanic ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... bishops sent over to Mexico and Peru, and when the Inquisition was established in both countries in 1570 it probably meant no increase of severity. The natives were exempt from its jurisdiction and it found little combustible material save in captured Protestant Europeans. A Fleming was burned at Lima in 1548, and at the first auto held at Mexico in 1574 thirty-six Lutherans were punished, all English captives, two by burning and the rest by scourging or ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... galleries over the angles of the parapet. I left small trap-doors in the bottom of these, for the purpose of throwing down shells on the heads of any party below attempting to force an entrance through the embrasures. The other defect—the presence of so much combustible matter in the quarters—it was impossible to remedy, and it ultimately cost the loss of the fort. The excuse that it never could have been anticipated that the fort would be attacked from the land side is hardly a valid one, for a foreign fleet might possibly have effected a landing on ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday
... the combustible line, I am afraid," said Winthrop, putting up his books and going to ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... marked its advance, and now dying away in hoarse murmurs, as if to gather strength for the new and more furious outburst that the next moment followed, it kept on its terrific march till it reached the central elevation, which embraced the most tangled, densely covered, and combustible part of the slash, and on which had been left standing an enormous dry pine, that towered so up high above the surrounding forest as to have long served as a landmark for the hunters and fishermen, in setting their courses through the woods or ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... unfortunately lacked, by another and analogous material. It was possible that some of the varieties of mushrooms which grew in the crevices of the old trees, after having been subjected to prolonged drying, might be transformed into a combustible substance. ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... During the course of the meeting in the afternoon the factory bell rung, and the "scabs" were seen leaving. Some boys in the audience began throwing stones and there was hooting. Fully aware of the combustible accounts wanted by their offices, the reporters immediately telephoned exaggerated, inflammatory stories of a riot being under way; the police on the spot likewise notified headquarters. [Footnote: In a statement published ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... being very high, the flame soon spread itself over the roof of the palace, and catching at every combustible in its way, the invaders became so terrified at the quick progress of fire which threatened to consume themselves as well as their plunder, that they quitted the spot with precipitation. Decrying the count and his soldiers at a short distance, they directed their motions ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... that prompt assistance might arrive, and that the books might, by the remotest possibility, be saved, would have been enough, on a moment's consideration, to dismiss any idea of this sort from his mind. Remembering the quantity of combustible objects in the vestry—the straw, the papers, the packing-cases, the dry wood, the old worm-eaten presses—all the probabilities, in my estimation, point to the fire as the result of an accident with his matches or ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... case, it is evident to the impartial observer that Voltaire's visit could only have ended as it did—in an explosion. The elements of the situation were too combustible for any other conclusion. When two confirmed egotists decide, for purely selfish reasons, to set up house together, everyone knows what will happen. For some time their sense of mutual advantage may induce them to tolerate each other, but sooner or later human nature ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... Gun-powder, in that they call the White-Tower, when all at once the middle Flooring did not only give way, or shrink, but fell flat down upon other Barrels of Powder, together with many of the same combustible Matter which had been placed upon it. It was a Providence strangely neglected at that Time, and hardly thought of since; But let any considerate Man consult the Consequences, if it had taken fire; ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... besom of destruction every object and monument of art which stood in their way. Cortez razed the walls of ancient Mexico to the ground as he entered it, and his zealous followers committed to the flames whatever was light and combustible. This spirit marked the entire conquest which was carried on under the triple mania of religious bigotry, the lust of gold, and the unchastened spirit of national robbery. We have to glean for facts among that which is left. It is still an interesting field, but it has been hedged up since ...
— Incentives to the Study of the Ancient Period of American History • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... definition of it, I should cease to feel it and to possess it. Passion is like suffering, and like suffering it creates its object. It is easier for the fire to find something to burn than for something combustible to find ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... freedom. This was at no time more remarkable than in the present Session, during the discussion of those arbitrary measures, the Treason and Sedition Bills, when sparks were struck out, in the collision of the two principles, which the combustible state of public feeling at the moment rendered not a little perilous. On the motion that the House should resolve itself into a Committee upon the Treason Bill, Mr. Fox said, that "if Ministers were determined, by means of the corrupt influence they already possessed in the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... and rendered more combustible by wax and oil, besides the arts they had used, took fire at once. The flames roared high and fiercely, blackening the prison wall, and twining up its lofty front like burning serpents. At first they crowded round the blaze, and vented their exultation only in their ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... intercourse with Italy and Asia Minor. The constant readiness of these men moving to and fro to carry everywhere sparks from the scene of conflagration tended in a high degree to excite apprehension, especially at a time when so much combustible matter was everywhere ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... streak was on, the whole work advancing, as it might be, pari passu. Planks for the decks were much wanted, for, in the terrible strait for fuel which had caused the original assault on the schooner, this portion of the vessel had been the first burned, as of the most combustible materials. The quarter-deck of the Vineyard craft, luckily, was entire, and its planks so far answered an excellent purpose. They served to make a new quarter-deck for the repairs, but the whole of the main-deck and forecastle remained ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... puts a stop to the mischief; but parties of men are also sent out into the woods to "fight the fire." They tread out the flames among the dry leaves by trampling them down, and they rake away the combustible materials, to confine the enemy to its old grounds, when it soon exhausts itself. The flames spread more frequently along the earth, than from ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... inwrapped in burning hydrogen, which in consequence of some great convulsion had been liberated in prodigious quantities, and then combining with other elements, had set this hapless world on fire? In such a fierce conflagration, the combustible gas would soon be consumed, and the glow would therefore begin to decline, subject, as in this case, to a second eruption, which occasioned the renewed outburst of light on ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... readily combustible wood was prepared. The body was taken charge of by persons chosen to perform the last sacred rites, and firmly bound in skins or blankets, and then placed upon the funeral pyre, with all the personal effects of the deceased, together with numerous votive offerings from ...
— Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity - Their History, Customs and Traditions • Galen Clark
... of the seared grass, and heaped a dry couch upon which Ben laid his charge within the genial heat that came from the cedar tree. Then they gathered up all the combustible matter within reach, and began to kindle a fire so near to the place where she lay that its heat must help to drive back the chill of death if there was a spark of life yet vital in ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... enlisted in Singapore and taken to the scene of action by Mr. Fontaine. The "enemy" was seldom obvious, but during the war it inflicted a loss upon us of eight killed and twenty-three wounded. We took various stockades, shot from sixty to eighty Malays, burned a good deal of what was combustible, and gave stability to the shaky rule of the Datu Klana, Syed Abdulrahman. Of this prince, who owed his firm seat on the throne to British intervention, the Resident wrote in 1880:—"Loyal to his engagements, he had gained the good will of the British ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... a likely sort of place to catch fire, it would seem, either," Hewitt commented. "Old ploughs and such lumber are not very combustible." ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... situation was for some time extremely perilous. The vessel neared us more than once, and apparently threatened to involve us in one common destruction. The cargo, consisting of dry provisions, spirits, cotton goods, and other articles equally combustible, burned with great violence, while the fury of the destroying element, the amazing height of the flames, the continued storm, amidst the thick darkness of the night, rendered the scene appalling and terrible. About ten o'clock, ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... in Pudding Lane, close by Fish Street, in the lower part of the city. The house being built of wood, and coated with pitch, as were likewise those surrounding it, and moreover containing faggots, dried logs, and other combustible materials, the fire spread with great rapidity: so that in a short time not only the baker's premises, but the homesteads which stood next it on either side were ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... thoughtful," exclaimed Harriet. The building of the fire made quite an impression on her. This impression was strengthened when upon reaching the low fire she observed that all leaves and combustible matter had been raked away to a safe distance from the fire so that the forest might not be fired by the blaze. It was her first lesson in woodcraft on this eventful journey into the ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... pleasing Bengal lights, with which people amuse themselves, and then laughingly throw from the windows into the street. Collected together in the story below and on the ground floor, transported to shops, to warehouses and into business cabinets, they find combustible material, piles of wood a long time accumulated, and here do the flames enkindle. The conflagration seems to have already begun, for the chimneys roar and a ruddy light gleams through the windows; but "No," say the people above, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... in gauze wire which, while it admits oxygen to feed the flame, prevents communication between the flame and any combustible or ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... with them on their hasty march to Morristown. Beside the cannon Molly also saw a lighted fuse slowly burning down at one end. She had a temptation as she looked at the piece of rope soaked in some combustible, lying there ready to achieve its purpose. She stooped over Dilwyn again, then she rose and went to the cannon, fuse in hand. In a half-second the booming of the great gun shook the battle-field—Molly had touched it off, and at exactly the right moment, ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... that report. Every one knew what it meant. It was caused by the exploding of the strong iron-bound cask— burst open by the gas engendered by the fire within. Of course the spirit was now spilled over the floor of the store-room and everywhere on fire; so that every combustible article within reach—and of these there were many—would soon catch the flame. There were dry barrels of biscuits, and quantities of bacon, hams, with lard, oil, and butter. It was remembered that there was a barrel of pitch, too, close to where the brandy-cask had been kept. All ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... done, Bog and Pet withdrew, and had hardly reached the foot of the tower, when the musical thunder of the great bell announced the constantly reiterated story of a fire in the Seventh—that most combustible of all ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... Flanderkin and forthwith sent to Newgate, and there were other arrests, which did but inflame the smouldering rage of the mob. Some of the wealthier foreigners, taking warning by the signs of danger, left the City, for there could be no doubt that the whole of London and the suburbs were in a combustible condition of discontent, needing only a spark ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... burning the city, as for their hatred of mankind. Their executions were so contrived as to expose them to derision and contempt. Some were covered over with the skins of wild beasts, and torn to pieces by dogs; some were crucified. Others, having been daubed over with combustible materials, were set up as lights in the night-time, and thus burned to death. Nero made use of his own gardens as a theatre on this occasion, and also exhibited the diversions of the circus, sometimes standing in the crowd as a spectator, in the habit of a charioteer; at other times ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... made by driving green bamboo stakes into the earth, between which was first laid fire-wood, very dry and combustible; upon this was put a quantity of dry straw, or reeds, besmeared with grease: this was done alternately, till the pile was five feet in height; and the whole was then strewed with rosin, finely powdered. A white cotton sheet, which had been ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... He immediately consented. The spring was not far advanced enough yet for Andrew to begin clearing any land even supposing that he had made a purchase; as it is always necessary that the leaves should be out, in order that this additional combustible may serve to burn the heaps ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... the three travellers got into their car. The doctor lit the combustible in his cylinder and turned the flame so as to produce a rapid heat, and the balloon, which had rested on the ground in perfect equipoise, began to rise in a few minutes, so that the seamen had to slacken the ropes they held it by. The car then rose about ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne |
