He touched off in quick succession a set of fierce rockets, angry catherine wheels, loudly exploding squibs—and the matter might have turned out very serious.
Trevithick's engine comprised a boiler feeding a hollow axle to route the steam to a catherine wheel with two fine-bore steam jets on its circumference.
It is rather like the last few spluttering turns of an extinguishing catherine wheel.
The contents of my head are now spinning round like a catherine wheel.
I come from the old school of sparklers and catherine wheels; the worst thing we had was bangers.
