Boom

“ If you have ever heard a fire bell boom out in the stillness, you will remember the terror which clutched your heart at the first ominous peal. It seemed to Billie, in going over it afterward, that the boom of that big fire bell was like the last trump on the day of judgment arousing the spirits of the dead. ”

“ But as the sky grew rapidly dark while it wanted yet a half-hour of sundown, and the wind came shrieking more madly down from the hills, and the boom-house began to creak and groan and shudder beneath the waves that were leaping upon it, anxiety for my safety took the place of all other considerations. ”

“ We stood outside the marquee and anxiously watched the horizon. We heard a faint humming noise. It grew louder and louder until it became a deep, droning buzz that rose and fell in regular pulsation. Then boom—boom—boom—three times the sullen roar of distant explosions sounded. Then there came the familiar rushing, whistling noise of a descending bomb. We flung ourselves down in the wet grass. I felt every muscle in my body contract as though I were trying to make myself as small as a pin point in expectation of the terrible moment. ”

“ A beaten ledge responds like a mighty gong with a humming roar that is strangely disproportionate to the means employed to produce the sound. Sometimes to stamp with the foot over a rounded surface of earth-covered granite is to produce an answering, drumlike boom that makes one suspect that he stands on a thin film of rock over a cavern. The music of a fall has many parts. One of these is the sand-dance sibilation of the shuffling waters, another this boom of the rock drum - 70 - on which the green flood beats with padded blows. ”

“ First came the sonorous impact of the swinging beam against curved metal, then the "boom," the echo,—the echoes of that echo to endless repetition, sifting in layers through the thinner air upon them, sweeping like vapor low along the hillside with a presence and reality so intense that it should have had color, or, at least, perfume; settling in a fine dew of sound on quivering ferns and grasses, permeating, it would seem, with its melodious vibration the very wood of the houses and the trunks of living trees. ”

“ You climb wave after high wave, and are not swallowed up as you expected. You wait, between guns, for the boom and the shock of the next, with a passionate anticipation, as you wait for the next wave. ”

“ It is understood that the water falls into a basin or chasm without outlet, carrying air with it, then the air bursts out with the boom that resembles the regulated beat of a mill. Be the cause what it may, the delusion is perfect. ”

“ Finally, when the great moon climbed the heavens and cast its ghastly radiance upon the bushes, it made a new and more brilliant crimson of the campfire, where the flames capered merrily through its mesquit branches, filling the silence with the fire chorus, an ancient melody which surely bears a message of the inconsequence of individual tragedy—a message that is in the boom of the sea, the sliver of the wind through the grass-blades, the silken clash of hemlock boughs. ”

“ The ropes became thick with striving men. The whole street resounded with a medley of cries.
Then the point of the boom swung slowly out of the fog, and there was the rescued man swinging and swaying at the end of it. ”

“ It is a strong, resonant boom like thunder, loud and penetrating, but so weird that one may fancy it passing for the supernatural in the dark, without very much help from the fears of the superstitious. ”

“ In the sense of a barrier, a boom is generally formed of timber lashed together, or of chains, built across the mouth of a river or harbour as a means of defence. Possibly from the metaphor of a breaking boom, and the accompanying rush and roar, or from the rush of rising waters (mingled with the onomatopoeic use) , “boom” began in America to be used of a sudden “spurt” or access of industrial activity, as in the phrase “a boom in cotton.” Hence the verb “to boom,” meaning to advertise or push into public favour. ”

“ With barely a movement we come from the bleaker months to where the picture pans briefly, dissolves upon the softer ores of spring. Ah, but the Captains of Industry are wheeling! A building boom amongst the trees after the first few casual blossoms had fallen along suburban driveways. ”

“ The great trouble with the modern boom is that it is too precocious. It knows more before it gets its clothes on than the nurse, the physician and its parents. It then dies before the sap starts in the maple forests.
My object in writing this letter is largely to tone down and keep in check any popular movement in my behalf until the weather in more settled. A season-cracked boom is a thing I despise.
I inclose my picture, however, which shows that I am so healthy that it keeps me awake nights. I go about the house singing all the time and playing pranks on my grandparents. ”

“ The [Pg 231] boom is opened at set times, to let out a portion of the logs, and then the river below is all alive with men and boys, in small boats, who grapple the logs as they float down, and form them into rafts, or tow them to the various mills on the river. Very few of the logs escape, unless too many are let out from the boom at once, or the river is swollen by a freshet, in which case they sometimes float off to sea and are lost. But all hands seem to be going to bed, and I guess we had better follow their example. ”

“ Luckily the embers were still [Page 264] alive, and there was a fair amount of dry wood still, and by making a big fire we smoked and burnt them out: though through all the hours of that storm, and the whole night of dreary drizzle that succeeded it, these dangerous, venomous little pests constantly immolated themselves on the glowing embers of the fire.
It rained all day, and a wit boom was never intended by nature to do more than afford a modicum of shade from the sun, certainly not to keep out even a shower. ”

“ A B is a long boom, from which are hoisted seven jibs, a, b, c, d, e, f, g, each a seventh part of the whole dimensions, and as much more as will fill the whole space when set in an angle of forty-five degrees, so that they may lap when going before the wind, and hold more wind when going large. Thus rigged, when going right before the wind, the boom should be brought at right angles with the keel, by means of the sheet ropes C D, and all the sails hauled flat to the boom. ”

“ We'll string heavy booms, chained together, between the cribs, and then trust to heaven they'll hold. I think we can hold the jam. The water will begin to flow over the bank before long, so there won't be much increase of pressure over what we have now; and as there won't be any shock to withstand, I think our heavy booms will do the business.”
He turned to direct the boring of some long boom logs in preparation for the chains. Suddenly he whirled again to Wallace with so strange an expression in his face that the young man almost cried out. ”

“ The extreme length of boom is obtained by two lengths of the staves; small cogs of wood are let in at intervals, half in one stave and half in its neighbour, so as to keep them from drawing, the whole bound together with strong hoops fitted with screws. The extreme diameter of the boom is 26 inches where the sheets are fixed, tapering off at the jaws, and 13 inches at the boom end. ”

“ Through its din are heard loud, deep, solemn booms that seem like the voice of some higher Power speaking out of the depths of the universe. Suddenly the storm subsides, the earth comes speedily to rest, and all is over. ”

“ And then perhaps the music is suddenly punctuated by heavy dull “booms”, like a distant cannonade, and one knows that only a few miles away dynamite is rending rock and man is grappling fiercely with nature. ”

“ For awhile the ship kept bucking and sidling like a vicious horse, the sails filling, now on one tack, now on another, and the boom swinging to and fro till the mast groaned aloud under the strain. Now and again, too, there would come a cloud of light sprays over the bulwark, and a heavy blow of the ship's bows against the swell: so much heavier weather was made of it by this great rigged ship than by my home-made, lop-sided coracle, now gone to the bottom of the sea.
At every jump of the schooner, red-cap slipped to and fro ”

“ Suddenly there comes a hollow booming sound—a roar, mellowed and subdued by distance, with a peculiar beat upon the ear, as if a wave struck the nerve and rebounded and struck again in an infinitesimal fraction of time—such a sound as can only bellow from the mouth of cannon. ”

“ It is wonderful what life the prospect of rain put into us. Eagerly we watched the approach of the dark clouds that were fast bearing down upon us.
"We must fix the cask to hold water," I said, "and also the canvas."
"And we can fix the sail, too," added Phil. "We must catch as much as possible."
I put the bung back into the cask, hammering it in well. Then by the aid of the mast, rudder and boom, we hung the canvas so that every drop that might fall upon it would be caught and poured into the cask. ”

“ In a general way his music is that of the streams refined and spiritualized. The deep booming notes of the falls are in it, the trills of rapids, the gurgling of margin eddies, the low whispering of level reaches, and the sweet tinkle of separate drops oozing from the ends of mosses and falling into tranquil pools. ”

“ The rustle of the woods, the roll of the thunder, the crash of the storm, the murmur of the waterfall—all those sounds of the earth and the air of which the poets are so fond, and in which the ancients recognized the prophetic voices of the gods—sober science seeks to trace back to the same law whose operation is perceived when the bullet whizzes through the air, when the wind whistles through the crack of the door or window, when the burning wood snaps in the fireplace, when the stove-door crackles in cooling, when the teakettle sings that the water is boiling. ”

“ Big with the rain, the snow, the hail—the lightning of passion. A spark, a touch, a strong wind an' they explode, they fall from grace, so to speak. But what have they done that we ain't never heard of? All we've noticed is the explosion, the fall, the blight. They have stirred the sky, whilst the little white pale-livered untempted clouds floated on the zephyrs—they've brought rain that made the earth glad, they've cleared the air in the very fall of their lightnin'. ”

“ There is a sudden flying gust of wind; the air is astir all about you: was not that thunder? Is it the heat thickening? Is a storm coming on?... And now there is a faint flash of lightning.... Ah, this is a storm! The sun is still blazing; you can still go on hunting. But the storm-cloud grows; its front edge, drawn out like a long sleeve, bends over into an arch. The grass, the bushes, everything around grows dark.... Make haste! over there you think you catch sight of a hay barn... ”

“ But the grandest part of the scene, is to see the fire keep speed or flight, with the wind, leaping or lapping over six or eight rods at a bound in frightful majesty, with a terrific roar, not unlike a whirlwind, while immense columns of smoke rise and roll off, in festoons and flounces, as independent as if the world was a coal-pit, and the sky a smokehouse. ”

“ Certainly we do more than hear the sound of the wind; its presence is obvious to three of the senses. We feel the chill or the fury of the blast; and, as it sweeps across the ocean, or the forest, or the field of corn, we see how the blades rise and fall in graceful curves, and the trees bend, and the waters sink and swell into waves which are the measure of its strength. ”

“ A mountain of flame, thirty feet high, and of unknown length, moving onward, roaring like "many waters"—in a gentle, stately movement, and unbroken front—then impelled by a gust of wind, suddenly breaks itself to pieces, here and there shooting ahead, whirling itself high in air—all becomes noise, and strife, and uproar, and disorder. ”

“ Rush comes the rain, and the gas-lamps are dimmed; whoo-oo comes the wind like a smack; cold drops get in the ears and eyes; clean wristbands are splotched; greasy mud splashed over shining boots; some one knocks the umbrella round, and the blast all but turns it. ”

“ Our children once on board, all safe and sound,
Watch with delight the busy scene around.
The noisy steam-pipe blows and blows away,—
"Now this is just the noise we like," they say.
But while the turmoil loud and louder grows,
"I'm glad the wind blows gently," whispers Rose. ”

“ It can hear the great wind roar in the chimney at its back through the winter nights, and the avalanches in miniature that come falling from the roof above when the world awakes to fight against its shroud of snow. ”

“ The rumble and roar made a terrifying sound. It was not like thunder, though it was akin to it. Nor was it like the blast of the tempest, though, in a measure, it filled the air with that awful howling. ”

“ If you are far enough out, the breaking wave curves over you like a roof inlaid and prismatic, bending down on the other side of you in layers of chalk and drifts of snow, and the lightning flash of the foam ends in the thunder of the falling wave. ”

“ Then properly hoisted up in “the calm and serene air,” and quite removed from the smoke and noise of neighbouring house-tops, a bell of the olden time led a noble and stately life; it felt the gloom or the radiance of the great passing cloud; its vibrations were supposed to ward off the storm and the thunder, and it heard strange news from the meteors and the stars. ”

“ The hurrying clouds gave to the heavens the appearance of a pointed dome, round which the lightning played in broad ribbons of fire. The roaring of the thunder, the rushing of the blast, the impetuous down-pouring of the rain, and the crash of falling trees were perfectly deafening ”

“ To study the fleeting cloud, to note the coming storm by the direction of the wind, or to notice the damp in the air as the mist rises and is wafted over the fields, has always been a favourite occupation. ”

“ The wind blows bleak across the prairies and the brittle snow-flakes that beat on the glass outside the iron-bars have a sound like the whirr of swords. I wish the wind would blow always, for it lays a salve on my soul. ”