I noticed in some of the officers, and undoubtedly in myself, a certain tenseness as the engineer nonchalantly illustrated within an inch or two of actuality how a percussion bomb would explode if brought in contact with the ground.
But it really never did land, for it had a percussion device in its nose which exploded it on touching ground.
If inspection shows that the foreign body can at once be removed by a suitable instrument: for example, a percussion cap the edge of which may be grasped by a pair of forceps (Figs.
At last, in 1842, the old flint-lock was superseded for the whole army by the original percussion musket, a smooth-bore whose charge was exploded by a percussion cap made of copper.
If the electric gear is disordered the gun can be fired equally well and safely by a percussion tube.
Young Shrapnell's invention a century ago of the form of shell that bears his name, a number of balls arranged in a case containing also a small bursting-charge fired either by percussion or by a time-fuse, has practically replaced them all.
I took one-half the powder in the cartridge, with a percussion cap, and with the use of my pistol and some dried grass, started a fire at which I cooked a young bird.
I had also some water-proof percussion caps in my portmanteau, which were also put to good use.
The chips are removed from a stone either by percussion with another stone (Fig.
Three kinds of true musical instruments may be distinguished--wind instruments, string instruments, and percussion instruments.
Between a solidified lung and one which happens to be compressed by effused fluid it requires no small experience to distinguish a difference, either by percussion or the use of the stethoscope.
Percussion over the region of the heart yields a dull flat sound.
If we make percussion directly from before backwards at any place external to I, Plate 1, we do not render the lung vibrative.
Bad shot," came down reproachfully through the telephone, "use percussion fuses.
He received a warm welcome from the general, alike for the message he brought and the very desirable supply of percussion caps.
In addition to his message, he took with him a supply of some forty pounds of percussion caps for the use of the besieged garrison.
His other burdens were his packet of percussion caps, his blanket, and his crutches.
The explosive mostly used in percussion caps is mercuric fulminate, which is a compound formed of mercury, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen.
When a ship strikes the arm it drives a firing pin against a percussion cap and explodes it, and this in turn fires the explosive charge in the mine.
Percussion lock, the lock of a gun that is fired by percussion upon fulminating powder.
Percussion fuze, a fuze in which the ignition is produced by a blow on some fulminating compound.
Percussion bullet, a bullet containing a substance which is exploded by percussion; an explosive bullet.
Percussion powder, powder so composed as to ignite by slight percussion; fulminating powder.
Percussion is said to be immediate if the blow is directly upon the body; if some interventing substance, as a pleximeter, is, used, it is called mediate.
Percussion cap, a small copper cap or cup, containing fulminating powder, and used with a percussion lock to explode gunpowder.
Defn: In deep well boring, a device resembling two long chain links, for connecting a percussion drill to the rod or rope which works it, so that the drill is driven down by impact and is jerked loose when jammed.
Firearms) Defn: A tool used for applying a fresh percussion cap or primer to a cartridge shell in reloading it.
What is the burst area of percussion high explosive shells, and what precautions can be taken against them?
What is the difference between a shrapnel shell, a time-fuse high explosive shell and a percussion high explosive shell?
A registering fire is easily recognized as the German artillery registers either with a single percussion shell at a time, or with two time-shells at three seconds interval.
A band is a company of musicians all of whom play upon either wind or percussion instruments, the main body of tone being produced by the brass and wood-wind divisions.
The kettle-drum is the most important member of the percussion family and is always used either in pairs or in threes.
The other important members of the percussion family are shown on this and the following page, their use being so obvious as to require no detailed explanation.
I say trebled, for my powder and the percussion combined have more than trebled the velocities.
The advantage of unglazed gunpowder is here fully shown; for it presents an inequality, a roughness of surface, over which the flame from the percussion mixture cannot travel without igniting some of the prominent parts, and thus the whole.
It is true, we have not now that complex machine, the flint-lock gun, in which Joe so peculiarly excelled; but we have a more simple and a more efficacious one in the percussion gun.
All locks for percussion should have the greatest strength of mainspring at the moment they strike the nipple, or as it is termed, when the lock is down.
Was there not an appropriation at the last session for converting flint into percussion arms?
He says, further, that he had officially requested you to exchange with Virginia, on fair terms of difference, percussion for flint muskets.
I have only time to add a few words about the percussion instruments which the military band permits to connect with the wind.
From the point of the bullet projects a little rod, which passes down through a small hole in the head piece into the chamber below, where it was connected with a percussion cap.
The point is a pointed axical bolt, whose rear is furnished with a percussion cap, to be exploded by the forward motion of a striker on the concussion of the projectile.
If we add to this economy in the charge of the barrel, the saving of the powder for priming, the advantage in military service of the percussion system will become conspicuous.
Dryness is, therefore, essential to the preservation of the fulminate; and hence charcoal, which is apt to become moist, should not be introduced into percussion caps destined for distant service.
As to the lightest particles which the water sweeps away beyond the lower end of the percussion table, they fall into conduits; whence they are lifted to undergo a new manipulation.
In thepercussion tables, the water for washing the ores is sometimes spread in slender streamlets, sometimes in a full body, so as to let two cubic feet escape per minute.
But this danger is guarded against by letting fall a drop of the paste into each copper percussion cap, and leaving it to dry there.
Of late years a detonating priming for fire-arms has been much used with thepercussion locks.
When gunpowder, however, is packed in a cartridge, or otherwise, it may be certainly kindled by a percussion cap of the fulminate, and more completely than by a priming of gunpowder.
Illustration: 399] The only locks which it is worth while to describe are those upon the percussion principle, as flint locks will certainly soon cease to be employed even in military musquets.
His trials, which occupied nearly 18 months, were made for the purpose of ascertaining what is the advantage in point of force obtained by using percussion primes.
By means of this plan, it is easy to vary, according to the circumstances of a manipulation always delicate, the force of percussion which a bar x y, ought to communicate by its extremity y.
This piece was altered from flint lock to pill-percussion lock, and later to thepercussion cap lock.
As sound is the result of the tremulous fluctuations of air, it will not surprise our reader to know, that no sound is conveyed from the percussion of bodies in a vacuum.
The percussion of flint and steel produces luminous sparks; these sparks consisting, as the experiments of Mr. R.
Wherever there is air in the chest, that is all over the healthy lungs, the sound elicited by percussion resembles that given out by a drum over which a thick woolen cloth has been placed.
Whenever fluid finds its way into the thorax, as in pleurisy, then the sound produced on percussionis very dull.
When Corvisart took up the subject of percussion of the chest, it was practically unknown in Europe outside of Vienna.
When the lungs become consolidated because of an inflammatory process such as pneumonia or tuberculosis, then the percussion note over the consolidated area resembles the sound over the leg or that found over the heart.
It was written in Latin, and its full title ran: "A New Discovery that Enables the Physician, from the Percussion of the Human Thorax, to Detect the Diseases Hidden within the Chest.
The sound elicited by percussion of the thigh Auenbrugger took as the standard of dulness and applied to it the term Schenkel-ton, or thigh sound.
He divides the chronic diseases of the thorax in which abnormal percussion sounds are heard into two classes.
Corvisart obtained his hint as to the possible value of percussion from Stoll's and Eyerel's appreciative remarks with regard to it.
They delivered a packet of gunpowder and percussion caps, the property of a Manyuema, to me, which they had picked up on the road.
We heard the loud boom of percussion muskets, and the sharper crack of rifles, and then there was quiet.
