R. M. Ballantyne

In the Track of the Troops (eBook, ePUB)

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

(Excerpt): "After becoming acquainted with gun-cotton, nitro-glycerine, dynamite, lithofracteur, and other combinations of powerfully-explosive agents, I took to searching for and inventing methods by which these might be utilised. To turn everything to good account, is a desire which I cannot resist. Explosives naturally drew my attention to mines-tin-mines, coal-mines, and other commercial enterprises. They also suggested war and torpedoes. At that time I had not reflected on the nature of war. I merely knew it to be a science, cultivated chiefly by the human race, and that in its practice explosives are largely used. To "blow-up" effectively, whether in a literal or figurative sense, is difficult. To improve this power in war, and in the literal sense, I set myself to work. I invented a torpedo, which seemed to me better than any that had yet been brought out. To test its powers, I made a miniature fortification, and blew it up. I also blew up our groom, Jacob Lancey.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: OTB eBook publishing
• Seitenzahl: 276
• Erscheinungstermin: 9. Mai 2019
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9783965372511
• Artikelnr.: 56684682

Autorenporträt

R. M. Ballantyne was a Scottish writer of young adult literature who produced more than a hundred books between 24 April 1825 and 8 February 1894. He was also a skilled artist; some of his watercolors were on display at the Royal Scottish Academy. The ninth of ten children and youngest son of Alexander Thomson Ballantyne (1776-1847) and his wife Anne, Ballantyne was born in Edinburgh on April 24, 1825. (1786-1855). Robert's uncle James Ballantyne (1772-1833) was Sir Walter Scott's printer, and Alexander worked as a newspaper editor and printer in the family business "Ballantyne & Co" based at Paul's Works on the Canongate. The family is documented to have resided at 20 Fettes Row in Edinburgh's northern New Town in 1832-1833. The Ballantyne printing company collapsed the next year with debts of £130,000 as a result of a UK-wide banking crisis, which caused a decrease in the family's finances. Ballantyne moved to Canada at the age of 16 and worked for the Hudson's Bay Company for five years. He traveled by canoe and sleigh to the regions that are now the provinces of Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec to trade with the local First Nations and Native Americans for furs; these experiences served as the inspiration for his book The Young Fur Traders.