The Great Stone of Sardis by Frank R. Stockton

In a large building, not far from the lens-house in which Roland Clewe had pursued the experiments which had come to such a disappointing conclusion, there was a piece of mechanism which interested its inventor more than any other of his works, excepting of course the photic borer.

This was an enormous projectile, the peculiarity of which was that its motive power was contained within itself, very much as a rocket contains the explosives which send it upward. It differed, however, from the rocket or any other similar projectile, and many of its features were entirely original with Roland Clewe.