Explosion

“ A burst of flame rose toward the skies with an explosion like that of a hundred cannon; the air burned, ignited by flaming embers, then the frightful lightning disappeared, the brands sank, one after another, into the abyss, where they were extinguished, and save for a slight vibration in the air, after a few minutes had elapsed one would have thought that nothing had happened. ”

“ An explosion, you see, is the sudden liberation at one time of the gases which result when the powder is burned. If the gases are given off gradually, and in the open, no harm is done. But put a stick like this in, say, a steel box, all closed up, save a hole for the fuse, and what do you have? An explosion. That's the principle of all guns and cannon. ”

“ An explosion—a loud burst of terrific cries and wails,—a careen, and the rebel steamer, with its wretched multitude of victims, plunged beneath the waters, and disappeared from view. The rebel vessels were crowded with troops, who fired volleys of rifle balls, most of which did no harm. ”

“ On our return, the eye, having had time to accommodate itself to the darkness around, embraced several objects; the roof, sides, and crags in many places, which had before escaped it. Our entertainment also was varied by a blast, as it is termed—the discharge of a small quantity of gunpowder thrust into the rock, occasioning an explosion only to be compared to that sound which the imagination would conceive might be produced, if universal nature were at once to tumble into ruins. ”

“ Another high explosive had burst, and where they had been sitting beside the road a rising column of smoke showed a hole.
"I—I——" whispered Henriette, and her eyes spoke what her lips could not.
But was the road the target? Another scream straight for them and again they thought: "This is death!" The explosion twenty or thirty yards short of the gully covered them with dust. A human something, red and blue, half rolled, half tumbled down the bank at their feet and lay there inert, stunned. ”

“ Now imagine a gun standing vertically, with its mouth a mile or more in diameter, and discharging its gases into the atmosphere with several times the speed with which they escape from a piece of artillery, and we will have the essential conditions of a volcanic explosion; only in place of the momentary outrush of the cannon we must imagine the explosion to endure for hours, or perhaps for days. ”

“ Those on the outer circle of explosions were thrown against their fellows, who surged back in another direction from an explosion in the opposite quarter. From the rear the pressure weakened; the human hammer was no longer driving the ram. Blinded by the lightnings and dust, dizzy from concussions and noise, too blank of mind to be sane or insane, the atoms of the bulk of the charge in natural instinct turned from their goal and toward the place whence they had come, with death from all sides still buffeting them. ”

“ Explosion after explosion gave greater terror to the scene: buildings were successively blown up in the useless effort to bar its pathway; the fire leaped the chasm and sped on. Fugitives of every age and condition were hurrying through the streets, laden with everything imaginable,—especially looking-glasses, which seem the one important thing to be saved during a fire. My brother and cousin had not yet made their appearance, nor had we seen anything of my brother-in-law, from the other end of the city. ”

“ A man would be waiting near the scene of each contemplated explosion. He would be given a loaf taken from the inverted batch. He would take it—perhaps wrapped in paper, but still inverted, and apparently the most innocent object possible—to the spot selected, deposit it, right side up—which would reverse the inner tube and set up the action—in some quiet corner, behind a door or what not, and make his own escape, while the explosion tore down walls and—if the experiment were lucky—scattered the flesh and bones of unsuspecting people. ”

“ Each explosion covers us with dust and hot smoke. Stones, clods of earth, branches of trees fall on our backs and set our gamelles clanging. The company loses five dead and a score wounded. Corporal Marcelin has his head torn off by my side. ”

“ To heat the poker and apply it to the hole in the keg was the work of but a few moments; when an explosion took place which blew the upper part of the building into the street, tearing and shattering everything else to atoms. ”

“ He who in a tremendous conflagration would blow up a block of houses with powder, must, even amid the riot and roar, so manage the explosion that lives be not wantonly lost. We must clear the chips away as our work advances. ”

“ Of course, buildings or other structures or objects near enough to the explosion to be struck by the expanding gases themselves, or by the atmosphere immediately propelled forward by them like a projectile, may be destroyed, but the area over which this action occurs is so circumscribed that no great damage is apt to result at distances beyond a few hundred feet. ”

“ The most terrific form of destruction, that of explosion, is not the most fatal, numerically regarded. Taking an average of fifteen years, twenty per cent, of the fatal casualties were attributable to explosions, thirty-three per cent, to falls of coal and of roof, fifteen per cent, to shaft accidents, and the rest to miscellaneous causes. ”

“ Albert told us—this explosion must be greater even than the Black Tom. We must see that each bomb accomplishes more than its object—it must be placed in such a way that it will either start fires following the explosion or cause other detonations as a result of its own. ”

“ When the great explosion came it sounded like the crack of doom, and most of the immigrants believed it to be the real thing and proceeded with agitated precipitation to get their souls ready for rapid transit over the Great Divide. ”

“ The Princess smiled. “I didn’t know that powder was an explosive?”
“Everything is an explosive . . . if you treat it properly. You yourself——”
“What?”
“Nothing. A latent explosion. You are terribly explosive.” ”

“ The action of this fire, and the force of its explosion, is so violent, that it produces by its re-action, succussions which shake the earth, agitate the sea, overthrow mountains, and destroy the most solid towers and edifices, even to very considerable distances. ”

“ A Zeppelin bomb explodes on contact, so you seek safety in the cellar, which it may not reach. But a taube bomb, small and pointed, pierces a floor and explodes at the lowest level reached. So you may not flee from a taube bomb to anywhere. You just stay with your wounded and wait. Ah, there is the explosion which makes the cots here in the ward rock and the men shake as with palsy and turn pale. ”

“ Everyone within ten or a dozen yards of the focus of the explosion was literally blown to atoms, and for fifty yards round every living creature dropped dead, killed either by the force of the concussion or the poisonous gases which were liberated by the explosion. ”

“ He did not merely sidle away from the perilous place—he fairly flew with an alacrity [128] born of desperation. He had barely emerged from the laboratory when there was a terrific explosion that leveled the building, and formed an enormous crater in the earth where he had stood, the concussion knocking him senseless. And, today, he still swears, with solemn earnestness, that a freight car could have been buried in the hole that was blown in the ground when his pet project went off. ”

“ For the last month it had not been possible to go on deck without seeing a gun fired or a shell burst. Down below, in cabin, ward-room, or gun-room, you did escape the sight of them—and the sight of those high explosives bursting among men and horses on the beaches can never be forgotten—but you could not escape the sound of them. Each time the air, coming through scuttle, doorway, skylight, or hatchway, thudded against your ears, the shock, big or little, from far or near, made you wince, and made your mind stop momentarily to picture the actual explosion ”

“ It is so very easy, when examining the scene of an explosion, for the first cause of rupture to be confounded with the causes of the subsequent mischief, that in many cases erroneous conclusions have been arrived at in this way. ”

“ As I lay with my eyes closed, I heard the same dull sound of distant explosions. The inferno was still raging. I crept through the store to the front. The reflection from the sky of vast conflagrations made the street almost as light as day. One could have read the finest print with ease. From several blocks away came the crackle of small hand-bombs and the churning of machine-guns, and from a long way off came a long series of heavy explosions. ”

“ The noise was so confounding, that it was some time before my assistants and myself could keep our senses about us and note and record the pressures on the various gauges during a run, although the apparatus was separated from us by a barricade so strong and heavy that there was no possibility of our being injured, even should there be an explosion. ”

“ Explosion.—The sudden and violent generation, with a loud noise and in a time inappreciable by the unaided senses, of a very great volume of gas, by the combustion of a body occupying a comparatively very small volume. ”

“ We were told, at breakfast, that we must not be alarmed if we heard a great explosion, for they were going to blow up a gateway near us. They are clearing as much as they can, a space around us, to give as little cover as possible for the enemy to fire from, in case it comes to a siege. ”

“ There is great increase in the number, variety, and potential energy of explosives, and they are causing a startling number of disasters; and these involve not only the proprietors who have the control, and the hands who do the work of the magazine, mine, quarry, factory, steam-ship, locomotive, in which the explosion occurs, but also the general public—by-standers, persons walking, riding, or lodging near, passengers by train or steamboat, carriers or purchasers of dangerous goods improperly packed, and many others. ”

“ There being two concurrent causes of the damage,-the explosion of the detonators, and the inflow of the water,-without any appreciable interval of time, or any possibility of distinguishing the amount of damage done by each, the explosion, as the cause which set the water in motion, and gave it its efficiency for harm at the time of the disaster, must be regarded as the predominant cause. ”

“ The explosion which comes from the usual amounts is much intensified and it is not at all out of the ordinary to hear shrieks from the women and to see surprised and somewhat dismayed men among the visitors. ”

“ In an explosion there is usually something anterior to, or apart from, the explosive compound, that pulls the trigger, or touches the match, or completes the circuit, but in the slow and gentle explosions that keep the life machinery going, we cannot make such a distinction. ”

“ Their bodies may be rotting among barbed wire; they may have been blown to pieces by an explosion, or swollen by asphyxiating gas, or burnt in the flames, or crushed beneath earthworks, or riddled by grape-shot, or torn by balls. ”

“ All the German contingent will be at the ball tonight to divert suspicion. When things are moving their best, we will slip in and plant the bomb under the main stairway. That will give it more breadth for destruction when the explosion comes. ”

“ A soldier, through carelessness, let a lighted fuse fall in a quantity of gunpowder, and by the explosion that resulted several men were killed and a fire was kindled which for a short time threatened the destruction of the storehouses, but which was extinguished before much harm was done. ”

“ Do you know that a newspaper writer came to interview me about that explosion? Those reporters imagine that scientific men know everything! I told the one who called on me that it would be very kind of him to enlighten me as to what powder was employed. And, by the way, I am giving a lesson on explosives at my laboratory to-morrow. There will be just a few persons present. You might come as well, Pierre, so as to give an account of it to Guillaume ”

“ Flashes of fire, the metallic crack of high explosives, the awful explosions that dug holes fifteen and twenty feet in diameter, the utter and complete pandemonium and the stench of hell, your friends blown to bits, the pieces dropping near—even striking you. ”

“ Progressive Combustion.—Combustion which takes place in a time appreciable by the unaided senses, such as that of rocket composition or a bit of paper.
Gunpowder.—A mixture of saltpetre, charcoal, and sulphur, which explodes. The signs of its explosion are a bright flash, a loud noise, and a large volume of smoke.
Incendiary (for “incendiary composition”) .—A substance or mixture which burns progressively, although fiercely, and is hard to put out.
Machine always means an apparatus of the ballista type. ”

“ The rain of shot of food and oxygen molecules penetrating into the cell from the medium, would produce an explosion in the existing ammunition depots, now at one point, now at another, creating great breaches through which new masses of shot would reach the interior. ”

“ I take my stand on top of the magazine mound to watch the enemy’s fire and direct our own. If I see that a mortar shell is about to fall into one of the gun pits, I call out the pit number, and the men run into the bomb-proof until the explosion is over. No man ever goes into a bomb-proof till this order is given. ”

“ If you held one in your hand after the first flare of ignition, you got a very pretty series of tiny explosions that gave you a pleasant little thrill, and to the ignorant onlooker an amusing little shock. ”