CIRCLE OF PERPETUAL APPARITION. A circle of the heavens parallel to the equator, and at a distance from the pole of any place equal to the latitude: within this circle the stars never set.

CIRCLES, GREAT, LESSER, AZIMUTH, VERTICAL (which see).

CIRCLES OF LONGITUDE. These are great circles passing through the poles of the ecliptic, and so cutting it at right angles.

CIRCULARS. Certain official letters which are sent to several persons, and convey the same information.

CIRCUMNAVIGATION. The term for making a voyage round the world.

CIRCUMPOLAR. A region which includes that portion of the starry sphere which remains constantly above the horizon of any place.

CIRCUMVALLATION, LINES OF. Intrenchments thrown up by a besieging army, outside itself, and round the besieged place, but fronting towards the country, to prevent interference from outside. This continuous method has gone out of favour, though some covering works of concentrated strength are still considered essential.

CIRRIPEDIA. A group of marine animals, allied to the crustacea. They are free and natatory when young, but in the adult state attached to rocks or some floating substance. They are protected by a multivalve shell, and have long ciliated curled tentacles, whence their name (curl-footed). The barnacles (Lepas) and the acorn-shells (Balanus) are familiar examples.

CIRRO-CUMULUS. This, the sonder-cloud, or system of small roundish clouds in the upper regions of the atmosphere, commonly moves in a different current of air from that which is blowing at the earth's surface. It forms the mackerel sky alluded to in the following distich:—

"A mack'rel sky and mares'-tails Make lofty ships carry low sails."

CIRRO-STRATUS. Is the stratus of the upper regions of the atmosphere, heavier looking than the cirrus, but not so heavy as the stratus.

CIRRUS. The elegant modification of elevated clouds, usually termed mares'-tails (see the distich given at CIRRO-CUMULUS); otherwise the curl-cloud.

CISCO. A fish of the herring kind, of which thousands of barrels are annually taken and salted in Lake Ontario.

CISTERN. A reservoir for water placed in different parts of a ship, where a constant supply may be required. Also furnished with a leaden pipe, which goes through the ship's side, whereby it is occasionally filled with sea-water, and which is thence pumped up to wash the decks, &c.

CITADEL. A fortified work of superior strength, and dominating everything else, generally separated therefrom by an open space of glacis or esplanade; often useful against domestic as well as foreign enemies.

CIVIL BRANCH. That department executed by civilians, as contradistinguished from the army or navy branch.

CIVILIANS. The surgeon, chaplain, purser or paymaster, assistant surgeons, secretary, and ship clerks, on board men-of-war.

CIVIL LORD. The lay or junior member of the admiralty board.

CIVIL WAR. That between subjects of the same realm, or between factions of the same state.

CLAIMANTS. Persons appealing to the jurisdiction of the admiralty court. They are denominated colourable, or fair, according to the informality, or justice, of their claims.

CLAKE. A name for the barnacle-goose (Anser bernicla). Also, for the Lepas anatifera, a cirriped often found attached to vessels or timber by a long fleshy peduncle, sometimes 4 or 5 feet in length.

CLAM. A well-known bivalve shell-fish. "As happy as a clam at high-water," a figurative expression for otiose comfort.

CLAMBER. To climb; to ascend quickly.

CLAMPING. Applying a cross-head, or stirrup-piece, in a socket.

CLAMP-NAILS. Such nails as are used to fasten clamps; they are short and stout, with large heads.

CLAMPS. Pieces of timber applied to a mast or yard, to prevent the wood from bursting. Also, thick planks lying fore and aft under the beams of the first orlop or second deck, the same as the rising-timbers are to the deck. They are securely fayed to all the timbers, to which they are fastened by nails through the clamp, and penetrating two-thirds of the thickness of the timbers. Also, substantial strakes, worked inside, on which the ends of the beams rest. Also, smooth crooked plates of iron forelocked upon the trunnions of cannon; these, however, are more properly termed cap-squares. (See CARRIAGE.) Also, any plate of iron made to open and shut, so as to confine a spar. A one-cheeked block; the spar to which it is fastened being the other cheek.—To clamp, is to unite two bodies by surfaces or circular plates.—Clamped, is when a piece of board is fitted with the grain to the end of another piece of board across the grain.

CLAMS. Strong pieces used by shipwrights for drawing bolts, &c. Also, a kind of forceps used for bringing up specimens of the bottom in sounding; a drag. (See CLAM.)

CLANG. The rattling or clashing of arms.

CLAP-BOARD [German, klapp-bord]. An east-country commercial plank, which ought to be upwards of 13 feet in length; cask-staves are also clap-boards. Clap-board, in the colonies, is the covering the side of a house with narrow boards, "lapping fashion," in contradistinction to shingling, or tiling, or clench-built.

CLAP-MATCH. A sort of seal, distinct from the fur-seal.

CLAP ON! The order to lay hold of any rope, in order to haul upon it. Also, to "Clap on the stoppers before the bitts," i.e. fasten the stoppers; or, "Clap on the cat-fall," i.e. lay hold of the cat-fall.—To clap a stopper over all, to stop a thing effectually; to clap on the stopper before the bitts next to the manger or hawse-hole; to order silence.—To clap in irons, to order an offender into the bilboes.—To clap on canvas, to make more sail.

CLAPPER. A name for the valve of a pump-box. Also, a plank or foot-bridge across a running stream; also, the clapper of a bell.

CLAP-SILL. The lockage of a flood-gate.

CLARTY. In north-country whalers, used for wet, slippery.

CLASHY. Showery weather.

CLASP-HOOK. An iron clasp, in two parts, moving upon the same pivot, and overlapping one another. Used for bending chain-sheets to the clues of sails, jib-halliards, &c. (See SPAR-HOOK.)

CLASS. Order or rank; specially relating to dockyard men.

CLASSIFICATION OF SHIPS. A register made of vessels according to the report rendered in by special surveyors. (See NAVY and LLOYD'S REGISTER.)

CLAW, OR CLAW OFF, TO. To beat, or turn to windward from a lee-shore, so as to be at sufficient distance from it to avoid shipwreck. It is generally used when getting to windward is difficult.

CLAYMORE. Anciently a two-handed sword of the Highlanders, but latterly applied to their basket-hilted sword.

CLEACHING NET. A hand-net with a hoop and bar, used by fishermen on the banks of the Severn.

CLEAN. Free from danger, as clean coast, clean harbour; in general parlance means quite, entirely. So Shakspeare represents AEgeon

"Roaming clean through the bounds of Asia."

Also, applied to a ship's hull with a fine run fore and aft.—Clean entrance, clean run.—To clean a ship's bottom. (See BREAMING and HOG.)

CLEAN BILL. (See BILL OF HEALTH.) When all are in health.

CLEAN DONE. Quite. In a seamanlike manner; purpose well effected; adroitly tricked. (See WEATHERED.)

CLEAN-FISH. On the northern coasts, a salmon perfectly in season.

CLEAN-FULL. Keeping the sail full, bellying, off the wind.

CLEAN OFF THE REEL. When the ship by her rapidity pulls the line off the log-reel, without its being assisted. Also, upright conduct. Also, any performance without stop or hindrance, off-hand.

CLEAN SHIP. A whale-ship unfortunate in her trip, having no fish or oil.

CLEAR. Is variously applied, to weather, sea-coasts, cordage, navigation, &c., as opposed to foggy, to dangerous, to entangled. It is usually opposed to foul in all these senses.

CLEAR, TO. Has several significations, particularly to escape from, to unload, to empty, to prepare, &c., as:—To clear for action. To prepare for action.—To clear away for this or that, is to get obstructions out of the way.—To clear the decks. To remove lumber, put things in their places, and coil down the ropes. Also, to take the things off a table after a meal.—To clear goods. To pay the custom-house dues and duties.—To clear the land. To escape from the land.—To clear a lighter, or the hold. To empty either.

CLEARANCE. The document from the customs, by which a vessel and her cargo, by entering all particulars at the custom-house, and paying the dues, is permitted to clear out or sail.

CLEAR FOR GOING ABOUT. Every man to his station, and every rope an-end.

CLEARING LIGHTERS. All vessels pertaining to public departments should be cleared with the utmost despatch.

CLEAR THE PENDANT. See UP AND CLEAR THE PENDANT.

CLEAR WATER. A term in Polar seas implying no ice to obstruct navigation, well off the land, having sea-room.

CLEAT A GUN, TO. To nail large cleats under the trucks of the lower-deckers in bad weather, to insure their not fetching way.

CLEATS, OR CLEETS. Pieces of wood of different shapes used to fasten ropes upon: some have one and some two arms. They are called belaying cleat, deck-cleat, and a thumb-cleat. Also, small wedges of wood fastened on the yards, to keep ropes or the earing of the sail from slipping off the yard. Mostly made of elm or oak.

CLEAVAGE. The splitting of any body having a structure or line of cleavage: as fir cleaves longitudinally, slates horizontally, stones roughly, smoothly, conchoidal, or stratified, &c.

CLEFTS. Wood sawn lengthways into pieces less in thickness than in breadth. (See PLANK.)

CLENCH, TO. To secure the end of a bolt by burring the point with a hammer. Also, a mode of securing the end of one rope to another. (See CLINCH.)

CLENCHED BOLTS. Those fastened by means of a ring, or an iron plate, with a rivetting hammer at the end where they protrude through the wood, to prevent their drawing.

CLENCH-NAILS. They are much used in boat-building, being such as can be driven without splitting the boards, and drawn without breaking. (See ROVE and CLENCH.)

CLEP. A north-country name for a small grapnel.

CLERK. Any naval officer doing the duty of a clerk.

CLETT. A northern or Erse word to express a rock broken from a cliff, as the holm in Orkney and Shetland.

CLEUGH. A precipice, a cliff. Also, a ravine or cleft.

CLEW. Of a hammock or cot. (See CLUE.)

CLICKS. Small pieces of iron falling into a notched wheel attached to the winches in cutters, &c., and thereby serving the office of pauls. (See RATCHET, or RATCHET-PAUL, in machinery.) It more peculiarly belongs to inferior clock-work, hence click.

CLIFF [from the Anglo-Saxon cleof]. A precipitous termination of the land, whatever be the soil. (See CRAG.)

CLIMATE. Formerly meant a zone of the earth parallel to the equator, in which the days are of a certain length at the summer solstice. The term has now passed to the physical branch of geography, and means the general character of the weather.

CLINCH. A particular method of fastening large ropes by a half hitch, with the end stopped back to its own part by seizings; it is chiefly to fasten the hawsers suddenly to the rings of the kedges or small anchors; and the breechings of guns to the ring-bolts in the ship's side. Those parts of a rope or cable which are clinched. Thus the outer end is "bent" by the clinch to the ring of the anchor. The inner or tier-clinch in the good old times was clinched to the main-mast, passing under the tier beams (where it was unlawfully, as regards the custom of the navy, clinched). Thus "the cable runs out to the clinch," means, there is no more to veer.—To clinch is to batter or rivet a bolt's end upon a ring or piece of plate iron; or to turn back the point of a nail that it may hold fast. (See CLENCH.)

CLINCH A BUSINESS, TO. To finish it; to settle it beyond further dispute, as the recruit taking the shilling.

CLINCH-BUILT. Clinker, or overlapping edges.

CLINCHER. An incontrovertible and smart reply; but sometimes the confirmation of a story by a lie, or by some still more improbable yarn: synonymous with capping.

CLINCHER OR CLINKER BUILT. Made of clincher-work, by the planks lapping one over the other. The contrary of carvel-work. Iron ships after this fashion are distinguished as being lap-jointed.

CLINCHER-NAILS. Those which are of malleable metal, as copper, wrought iron, &c., which clinch by turning back the points in rough-built fir boats where roofs and clinching are thus avoided.

CLINCHER-WORK. The disposition of the planks in the side of any boat or vessel, when the lower edge of every plank overlaps that next below it. This is sometimes written as pronounced, clinker-work.

CLIPHOOK. A hook employed for some of the ends of the running rigging.

CLIPPER. A fast sailer, formerly chiefly applied to the sharp-built raking schooners of America, and latterly to Australian passenger-ships. Larger vessels now built after their model are termed clipper-built: sharp and fast; low in the water; rakish.

CLIVE. An old spelling of cliff.

CLOCK-CALM. When not a breath of wind ruffles the water.

CLOCK-STARS. A name for the nautical stars, which, from their positions having been very exactly ascertained, are used for determining time.

CLOD-HOPPER. A clownish lubberly landsman.

CLOKIE-DOO. A west of Scotland name for the horse-mackerel.

CLOSE-ABOARD. Near or alongside; too close to be safe. "The boat is close aboard," a caution to the officer in command to receive his visitor. "The land is close aboard," danger inferred.

CLOSE-BUTT. Where caulking is not used, the butts or joints of the planks are sometimes rabbeted, and fayed close, whence they are thus denominated.

CLOSE CONTRACT. One not advertised.

CLOSED PORT. One interdicted.

CLOSE-FIST. One who drives a hard bargain in petty traffic.

CLOSE HARBOUR. That is one gained by labour from the element, formed by encircling a portion of water with walls and quays, except at the entrance, or by excavating the land adjacent to the sea or river, and then letting in the water.

CLOSE-HAULED. The general arrangement or trim of a ship's sails when she endeavours to progress in the nearest direction possible contrary to the wind; in this manner of sailing the keel of square-rigged vessels commonly makes an angle of six points with the line of the wind, but cutters, luggers, and other fore-and-aft rigged vessels will sail even nearer. This point of sailing is synonymous with on a taut bowline and on a wind.

CLOSE PACK. The ice floes so jammed together that boring is impossible, and present efforts useless. (See PACK-ICE.)

CLOSE-PORTS. Those which lie up rivers; a term in contradistinction to out-ports.

CLOSE-QUARTERS, OR CLOSE-FIGHTS. Certain strong bulk-heads or barriers of wood, formerly stretching across a merchant ship in several places; they were used for retreat and shelter when a ship was boarded by an adversary, and were therefore fitted with loop-holes. Powder-chests were also fixed upon the deck, containing missiles which might be fired from the close quarters upon the boarders. The old slave-ships were thus fitted in case of the negroes rising, and flat-headed nails were cast along the deck to prevent their walking with naked feet. In the navy, yard-arm and yard-arm, sides touching.

CLOSE-REEFED. The last reefs of the top-sails, or other sails set, being taken in.

CLOSE-SIGHT. The notch in the base-ring of a cannon, to place the eye in a line with the top-sight.

CLOSE THE WIND, TO. To haul to it.—Close upon a tack or bowline, or close by a wind, is when the wind is on either bow, and the tacks or bowlines are hauled forwards that they may take the wind to make the best of their way.—Close to the wind, when her head is just so near the wind as to fill the sails without shaking them.

CLOSE WITH THE LAND, TO. To approach near to it.

CLOSH [from the Danish klos]. A sobriquet for east-country seamen.

CLOTHED. A mast is said to be clothed when the sail is so long as to reach the deck-gratings. Also, well clothed with canvas; sails well cut, well set, and plenty of them.

CLOTHES-LINES. A complete system of parallel lines, hoisted between the main and mizen masts twice a week to dry the washed clothes of the seamen.

CLOTHING. The rigging of the bowsprit.—Clothing the bowsprit is rigging it. Also, the purser's slops for the men.

CLOTH IN THE WIND. Too near to the wind, and sails shivering. Also, groggy.

CLOTHS. In a sail, are the breadths of canvas in its whole width. When a ship has broad sails they say she spreads much cloth.

CLOTTING. A west-country method of catching eels with worsted thread.

CLOUD. A collection of vapours suspended in the atmosphere. Also, under a cloud of canvas.

CLOUGH. A word derived from the verb to cleave, and signifying a narrow valley between two hills. (See CLEUGH.) Also, in commerce, an allowance on the turn of the beam in weighing.

CLOUT. From the Teutonic kotzen, a blow. Also, a gore of blood.

CLOUT-NAILS [Fr. clouter]. To stud with nails, as ships' bottoms and piles were before the introduction of sheet copper.

CLOUTS. Thin plates of iron nailed on that part of the axle-tree of a gun-carriage that comes through the nave, and through which the linch-pin goes.

CLOVE-HITCH. A knot or noose by which one rope is fastened to another. (See HITCH.) Two half hitches round a spar or rope.

CLOVE-HOOK. Synonymous with clasp-hook.

CLOVES. Planks made by cleaving. Certain weights for wool, butter, &c. Also, long spike-nails [derived from clou, Fr.]

CLOW. A kind of sluice in which the aperture is regulated by a board sliding in a frame and groove.

CLOY, TO. To drive an iron spike by main force into the vent or touch-hole of a gun, which renders it unserviceable till the spike be either worked out, or a new vent drilled. (See NAILING and SPIKING.)

CLUBBED. A fashion which obtained in the time of pig-tails of doubling them up while at sea.

CLUBBING. Drifting down a current with an anchor out.

CLUBBING A FLEET. Man[oe]uvring so as to place the first division on the windward side.

CLUBBOCK. The spotted blenny or gunnel (Gunnellus vulgaris).

CLUB-HAUL, TO. A method of tacking a ship by letting go the lee-anchor as soon as the wind is out of the sails, which brings her head to wind, and as soon as she pays off, the cable is cut and the sails trimmed; this is never had recourse to but in perilous situations, and when it is expected that the ship would otherwise miss stays. The most gallant example was performed by Captain Hayes in H.M.S. Magnificent, 74, in Basque Roads, in 1814, when with lower-yards and top-masts struck, he escaped between two reefs from the enemy at Oleron. He bore the name of Magnificent Hayes to the day of his death, for the style in which he executed it.

CLUB-LAW. The rule of violence and strength.

CLUE. Of a square sail, either of the lower corners reaching down to where the tacks and sheets are made fast to it; and is that part which comes goring out from the square of the sail.

CLUE-GARNETS. A sort of tackle rove through a garnet block, attached to the clues of the main and fore sails to haul up and truss them to the yard; which is termed clueing up those sails as for goose-wings, or for furling. (See BLOCK.)

CLUE-LINES. Are for the same purpose as clue-garnets, only that the latter term is solely appropriated to the courses, while the word clue-line is applied to those ropes on all the other square sails; they come down from the quarters of the yards to the clues, or lower corners of the sails, and by which the sails are hauled or clued up for furling.

CLUE OF A HAMMOCK. The combination of small lines by which it is suspended, being formed of knittles, grommets, and laniards; they are termed double or single clues, according as there are one or two at each end. Latterly iron grommets or rings were introduced, but did not afford the required spread, and in some cases triangular irons, or span-shackles were substituted, called Spanish clues, formed by fixing the knittles at equal distances upon a piece of rope instead of a grommet, which having an eye spliced, and a laniard placed at each end, extends the hammock in the same way as a double clue.—From clue to earing. A phrase implying from the bottom to the top, or synonymous with "from top to toe." Or literally the diagonal of a square sail. Also, every portion, as in shifting dress; removing every article. Also, cleaning a ship from clue to earing; every crevice.—A clue up. A case of despair. In readiness for death.

CLUE-ROPE. In large sails, the eye or loop at the clues is made of a rope larger than the bolt-rope into which it is spliced.

CLUE UP! The order to clue up the square sails.

CLUMP. A circular plantation of trees.

CLUMP-BLOCKS. Those that are made thicker or stronger than ordinary blocks. (See BLOCK, TACK-AND-SHEET.)

CLUSTER. See GROUP.

CLUTCH. The oyster spawn adhering to stones, oyster shells, &c.

CLUTCH. Forked stanchions of iron or wood. The same as crutch, clutch, or clamp block. (See SNATCH-BLOCK.)

CLUTTERY. Weather inclining to stormy.

COACH, OR COUCH. A sort of chamber or apartment in a large ship of war, just before the great cabin. The floor of it is formed by the aftmost part of the quarter-deck, and the roof of it by the poop: it is generally the habitation of the flag-captain.

COACH-HORSES. The crew of the state barge; usually fifteen selected men, to support the captain in any daring exploits.

COACH-WHIP. The pendant.

COAD. In ship-building, the fayed piece called bilge-keel.

COAK. A small perforated triangular bit of brass inserted into the middle of the shiver (now called sheave) of a block, to keep it from splitting and galling by the pin, whereon it turns. Called also bush, cock or cogg, and dowel.

COAKING. Uniting pieces of spar by means of tabular projections formed by cutting away the solid of one piece into a hollow, so as to make a projection in the other fit in correctly, the butts preventing the pieces from drawing asunder. Coaks, or dowels, are fitted into the beams and knees of vessels, to prevent their slipping.

COAL-FISH. The Gadus carbonarius. Called gerrack in its first year, cuth or queth in its second, sayth in its third, lythe in its fourth, and colmie in its fifth, when it is full grown.

COALING. Taking in a supply of coals for a cruise or voyage.

COALS. To be hauled over the coals, is to be brought to strict account.

COAL-SACKS. An early name of some dark patches of sky in the Milky Way, nearly void of stars visible to the naked eye. The largest patch is near the Southern Cross, and called the Black Magellanic Cloud.

COAL-SAY. The coal-fish.

COAL-TAR. Tar extracted from bituminous coal.

COAL-TRIMMER. One employed in a steamer to stow and trim the fuel. This duty and that of the stoker are generally combined.

COAMING-CARLINGS. Those timbers that inclose the mortar-beds of bomb-vessels, and which are called carlings, because they are shifted occasionally. Short beams where a hatchway is cut.

COAMINGS OF THE HATCHES OR GRATINGS. Certain raised work rather higher than the decks, about the edges of the hatch-openings of a ship, to prevent the water on deck from running down. Loop-holes were made in the coamings for firing muskets from below, in order to clear the deck of an enemy when a ship is boarded. There is a rabbet in their inside upper edge, to receive the hatches or gratings.

COAST. The sea-shore and the adjoining country; in fact, the sea-front of the land. (See SHORE.)

COAST-BLOCKADE. A body of men formerly under the jurisdiction of the Customs, termed Preventive Service, offering a disposable force in emergency; but which has been turned over to the control of the Admiralty, and now become the Coast-guard, over which a commodore, as controller-general, presides. (See FENCIBLES.)

COASTER. See COASTING.

COASTING, OR TO COAST ALONG. The act of making a progress along the sea-coast of any country, for which purpose it is necessary to observe the time and direction of the tide, to know the reigning winds, the roads and havens, the different depths of water, and the qualities of the ground. As these vessels are not fitted for distant sea voyages, they are termed coasters.

COASTING PILOT. A pilot who has become sufficiently acquainted with the nature of any particular coast, to conduct a ship or fleet from one part of it to another; but only within his limits. He may be superseded by the first branch-pilot he meets after passing his bounds.

COASTING TRADE. The commerce of one port of the United Kingdom with another port thereof. A trade confined by law to British ships and vessels.

COAST-WAITER. Custom-house superintendents of the landing and shipping of goods coastways.

COAST-WARNING. Synonymous with storm-signal; formerly fire-beacons were used to give warning of the approach of an enemy.

COAT. A piece of tarred canvas nailed round above the partners, or that part where the mast or bowsprit enters the deck. Its use is to prevent the water from running down between decks. There is sometimes a coat for the rudder, nailed round the hole where the rudder traverses in the ship's counter. It also implies the stuff with which the ship's sides or masts are varnished, to defend them from the sun and weather, as turpentine, pitch, varnish, or paint; in this sense we say, "Give her a coat of tar or paint." By neglecting the scraper this may become a crust of coatings.

COAT OF MAIL. The chiton shell.

COAT-TACKS. The peculiar nails with which the mast coats are fastened.

COB. A young herring. Also, a sea-gull. Also, a sort of short break-water—so called in our early statutes: such was that which forms the harbour of Lyme Regis, originally composed of piles and timber, lined with heaps of rock; but now constructed of stone compacted with cement.

COBB. A Gibraltar term for a Spanish dollar.

COBBING. An old punishment sometimes inflicted at sea for breach of certain regulations—chiefly for those quitting their station during the night. The offender was struck a certain number of times on the breech with a flat piece of wood called the cobbing-board. Also, when watch was cried, all persons were expected to take off their hats on pain of being cobbed.

COBBLE, TO. To mend or repair hastily. Also, the coggle or cog (which see).—Cobble or coggle stones, pebbly shingle, ballast-stones rounded by attrition, boulders, &c.

COBBLER. An armourer's rasp.

COBBO. The small fish known as the miller's thumb.

COBLE. A low flat-floored boat with a square stern, used in the cod and turbot fishery, 20 feet long and 5 feet broad; of about one ton burden, rowed with three pairs of oars, and furnished with a lug-sail; it is admirably constructed for encountering a heavy swell. Its stability is secured by the rudder extending 4 or 5 feet under her bottom. It belonged originally to the stormy coast of Yorkshire. There is also a small boat under the same name used by salmon fishers.

COBOOSE. See CABOOSE.

COCK. That curved arm affixed to the lock of small arms, which, when released by the touch of the trigger, flies forward and discharges the piece by percussion, whether of flint and steel, fulminating priming, needles abutting on the latter, &c.

COCKADE. First worn by St. Louis on his unfortunate crusade.

COCK-A-HOOP. In full confidence, and high spirits.

COCKANDY. A name on our northern shores for the puffin, otherwise called Tom Noddy (Fratercula arctica).

COCK-BILL. The situation of the anchor when suspended from the cat-head ready for letting go. Also said of a cable when it hangs right up and down. To put the yards a-cockbill is to top them up by one lift to an angle with the deck. The symbol of mourning.

COCK-BOAT. A very small boat used on rivers or near the shore. Formerly the cock was the general name of a yawl: it is derived from coggle or cog (which see).

COCKETS, OR COQUETS. An official custom-house warrant descriptive of certain goods which the searcher is to allow to pass and be shipped. Also, a galley term for counterfeit ship-papers.—Cocket bread. Hard sea-biscuit.

COCK-PADDLE. A name of the paddle or lump-fish (Cyclopterus lumpus).

COCKLE. A common bivalve mollusc (Cardium edule), often used as food.

COCKLING SEA. Tumbling waves dashing against each other with a short and quick motion.

COCKPIT. The place where the wounded men are attended to, situated near the after hatchway, and under the lower gun-deck. The midshipmen alone inhabited the cockpit in former times, but in later days commission and warrant officers, civilians, &c., have their cabins there.—Fore cockpit. A place leading to the magazine passage, and the boatswain's, gunner's, and carpenter's store-rooms; in large ships, and during war time, the boatswain and carpenter generally had their cabins in the fore cockpit, instead of being under the forecastle.

COCKPITARIAN. A midshipman or master's mate; so called from messing in the cockpit of a line-of-battle ship.

COCKSETUS. An old law-term for a boatman or coxswain.

COCKSWAIN, OR COXSWAIN. The person who steers a boat; after the officer in command he has charge of the crew, and all things belonging to it. He must be ready with his crew to man the boat on all occasions.

COCOA, OR CHOCOLATE NUTS, commonly so termed. (See CACAO.) It is the breakfast food of the navy.

COCOA-NUT TREE. The Palma cocos yields toddy; the nut, a valuable oil and milky juice; the stem, bark, branches, &c., also serve numerous purposes. (See PALMETTO.)

COD. The centre of a deep bay. The bay of a trawl or seine. Also, the Gadus morrhua, one of the most important of oceanic fishes. The cod is always found on the submerged hills known as banks; as the Dogger Bank, and banks of Newfoundland. (See LING.)

COD-BAIT. The large sea-worm or lug, dug from the wet sands. The squid or cuttle, herrings, caplin, any meat, or even a false fish of bright tin or pewter. (See JIG.)

CODDY-MODDY. A gull in its first year's plumage.

CODE OF SIGNALS. Series of flags, &c., for communicating at sea.

COD-FISHER'S CREW. The crew of a banker, or fishing-vessel, which anchors in 60 or 70 fathoms on the Great Bank of Newfoundland, and remains fishing until full, or driven off by stress of weather. Season from June until October. (See FISHERIES.)

CODGER. An easy-going man of regularity. Also, a knowing and eccentric hanger-on; one who will not move faster than he pleases.

COD-LINE. An eighteen-thread line.

COD-SOUNDS. The swim-bladders of the cod-fish, cured and packed for the market; the palates also of the fish are included as "tongues and sounds."

COEHORN. A brass mortar, named after the Dutch engineer who invented it. It is the smallest piece of ordnance in the service, having a bore of 4-1/2 inches diameter, a length of 1 foot, and a weight of 3/4 cwt. They throw their 12-pounder shells with much precision to moderate distances, and being fixed to wooden beds, are very handy for ships' gangways, launches, &c., afloat, and for advanced trenches, the attack of stockades, &c., ashore.

COFFER, OR COFFRE. A depth sunk in the bottom of a dry ditch, to baffle besiegers when they attempt to cross it.

COFFER-DAM. A coffer-dam consists of two rows of piles, each row boarded strongly inside, and being filled with clay within well rammed, thereby resists outward pressure, and is impenetrable by the surrounding water. (See CAISSON.)

COGGE. An Anglo-Saxon word for a cock-boat or light yawl, being thus mentioned in Morte Arthure—

"Then he covers his cogge, and caches one ankere."

But coggo, as enumerated in an ordinance of parliament (temp. Rich. II.), seems to have been a vessel of burden used to carry troops.

COGGE-WARE. Goods carried in a cogge.

COGGLE, OR COG. A small fishing-boat upon the coasts of Yorkshire, and in the rivers Ouse and Humber. Hence the cogmen, who after shipwreck or losses by sea, wandered about to defraud people by begging and stealing, until they were restrained by proper laws.

COGGS. The same with coaks or dowels (which see).

COGS OF A WHEEL; applies to all wheel machinery now used at sea or on shore: thus windlass-cogs, capstan-cogs, &c.

COGUING THE NOSE. Making comfortable over hot negus or grog.

COIGN. See QUOIN.

COIL. A certain quantity of rope laid up in ring fashion. The manner in which all ropes are disposed of on board ship for convenience of stowage. They are laid up round, one fake over another, or by concentric turns, termed Flemish coil, forming but one tier, and lying flat on the deck, the end being in the middle of it, as a snake or worm coils itself.

COILING. A sort of serpentine winding of a cable or other rope, that it may occupy a small space in the ship. Each of the windings of this sort is called a fake, and one range of fakes upon the same line is called a tier. There are generally from five to seven fakes in a tier, and three or four tiers in the whole length of the cable. The smaller ropes employed about the sails are coiled upon cleats at sea, to prevent their being entangled.

COIR. Cordage made from the fibrous husks of the cocoa-nut; though cables made of it are disagreeable to handle and coil away, they have the advantage of floating in water, so that vessels ride easily by them; they are still used by the Calcutta pilot-brigs. True coir is from the Borassus gomutus, the long fibrous black cloth-like covering of the stem. It is from this that the black cables in the East are made; the cocoa-nut fibre being of a reddish hue. It is used for strong brushes, being cylindrical and smooth, with a natural gloss.

COKERS. The old name for cocoa-nut trees.

CO-LATITUDE. The abbreviation for complement of latitude, or what it is short of 90 deg.

COLD-CHISEL. A stout chisel made of steel, used for cutting iron when it is cold.

COLD-EEL. The Gymnotus electricus.

COLE [from the German kohl]. Colewort or sea-kale; a plant in its wild state peculiar to the sea-coast.

COLE-GOOSE. A name for the cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo).

COLLAR. An eye in the end or bight of a shroud or stay, to go over the mast-head. The upper part of a stay. Also, a rope formed into a wreath, with a heart or dead-eye seized in the bight, to which the stay is confined at the lower part. Also, the neck of a bolt.

COLLAR-BEAM. The beam upon which the stanchions of the beak-head bulk-head stand.

COLLECTOR OF CUSTOMS. An officer who takes the general superintendence of the customs at any port.

COLLIERS. Vessels employed exclusively to carry coals from the northern ports of England. This trade has immemorially been an excellent nursery for seamen. But Shakspeare, in Twelfth Night, makes Sir Toby exclaim, "Hang him, foul collier!" The evil genius has lately introduced steam screw-vessels into this invaluable school.

COLLIMATION, LINE OF. The optical axis of a telescope, or an imaginary line passing through the centre of the tube.

COLLISION. The case of one ship running foul of another; the injuries arising from which, where no blame is imputable to the master of either, is generally borne by the owners of both in equal parts. (See ALLISION.)

COLLISION-CLAUSE. See RUNNING-DOWN CLAUSE.

COLLOP. A cut from a joint of meat. "Scotch collops."

COLMIE. A fifth-year or full-grown coal-fish; sometimes called comb.

COLMOW. An old word for the sea-mew, derived from the Anglo-Saxon.

COLONEL. The commander of a regiment, either of horse or foot.

COLONNATI. The Spanish pillared dollar.

COLOURABLE. Ships' papers so drawn up as to be available for more purposes than one. In admiralty law, a probable plea.

COLOUR-CHESTS. Chests appropriated to the reception of flags for making signals.

COLOURS. The flags or banners which distinguish the ships of different nations. Also, the regimental flags of the army. Hauling down colours in token of submission, and the use of signals, are mentioned by Plutarch in Themistocles.

COLOUR-SERGEANT. The senior sergeant of a company of infantry; he acts as a kind of sergeant-major, and generally as pay-sergeant also to the company. From amongst these trustworthy men, the sergeants for attendance on the colours in the field were originally detailed.

COLT. A short piece of rope with a large knot at one end, kept in the pocket for starting skulkers.

COLUMBIAD. A name given in the United States to a peculiar pattern of gun in their service, principally adapted to the firing of heavy shells: its external form does not appear to have been the result of much science, and it is now generally superseded by the Dahlgren pattern.

COLUMN. A body of troops in deep files and narrow front, so disposed as to move in regular succession.

COLURES. Great circles passing through the equinoctial and solstitial points, and the poles of the earth.

COMB. A small piece of timber under the lower part of the beak-head, for the fore-tack to be hauled to, in some vessels, instead of a bumkin: it has the same use in bringing the fore-tack on board that the chess-tree has to the main-tack. Also, the notched scale of a wire-micrometer. Also, that projecting piece on the top of the cock of a gun-lock, which affords the thumb a convenient hold for drawing it back.

COMBATANTS. Men, or bodies of troops, engaged in battle with each other.

COMBE. See COOMB and CWM.

COMBERS. Heavy surges breaking on a beach.

COMBERS, GRASS. Men who volunteer from the plough-tail, and often prove valuable seamen.

COMBING THE CAT. The boatswain, or other operator, running his fingers through the cat o' nine tails, to separate them.

COMBINGS. See COAMINGS.

COMBING SEA. A rolling and crested wave.

COMBUSTION. Burning, &c. (See SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION.)

COME NO NEAR! The order to the helmsman to steer the ship on the course indicated, and not closer to the wind, while going "full and by."—Come on board, sir. An officer reporting himself to his superior on returning from duty or leave.—Come to. To bring the ship close to the wind.—Come to an anchor. To let go the anchor.—Come up! with a rope or tackle, is to slack it off.—Comes up, with the helm. A close-hauled ship comes up (to her course) as the wind changes in her favour. To come up with or overhaul a vessel chased.—Come up the capstan. Is to turn it the contrary way to that which it was heaving, so as to take the strain off, or slacken or let out some of the cablet or rope which is about it.—Come up the tackle-fall. Is to let go.—To come up, in ship-building, is to cast loose the forelocks or lashings of a sett, in order to take in closer to the plank.

COMING-HOME. Said of the anchor when it has been dropped on bad holding ground, or is dislodged from its bed by the violence of the wind and sea, and is dragged along by the vessel, or is tripped by insufficient length of cable.—Coming round on her heel. Turning in the same spot.—Coming the old soldier. Petty man[oe]uvring.—Coming-up glass. (See DOUBLE-IMAGE MICROMETER.)

COMITY. A certain comitas gentium, or judgment of tribunals, having competent jurisdiction in any one state, are regarded in the courts of all other civilized powers as conclusive. Especially binding in all prize matters, however manifestly unjust may be the decision. (See JUDGMENT.)

COMMAND. The words of command are the terms used by officers in exercise or upon service. All commands belong to the senior officer. Also, in fortification, the height of the top of the parapet of a work above the level of the country, or above that of another work. Generally, one position is said to be commanded by another when it can be seen into from the latter.

COMMANDANT. The officer in command of a squadron, ship, garrison, fort, or regiment.

COMMANDER. An officer in the royal navy, commanding a ship of war of under twenty guns, a sloop of war, armed ship, or bomb-vessel. He was entitled master and commander, and ranked with a major of the army: now simply termed commander, and ranking with lieutenant-colonel, but junior of that rank. The act of the commander is binding upon the interests of all under him, and he is alone responsible for costs and damages: he may act erroneously, and abandon what might have turned out good prize to himself and crew.—Commander is also the name of a large wooden mallet used specially in the sail and rigging lofts, as anything of metal would injure the ropes or canvas.

COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. The senior officer in any port or station appointed to hold command over all other vessels within the limits assigned to him. Thus the commodore on the coast of Africa is, de facto, commander-in-chief, free from the interference of any other authority afloat.

COMMAND-OF-MIND MEN. Steady officers, who command coolly.

COMMEATUS, OR PROVISIONS, going to the enemy's ports, subject only to pre-emption, a right of purchase upon reasonable terms, but previously liable to confiscation (Robinson). Commeatus, in admiralty law, is a general term, signifying drink as well as eatables.

COMMERCE. Was not much practised by the Romans. The principal objects of their water-carriage were the supply of corn, still termed annona, and the tribute and spoils of conquered countries.

COMMERCIAL CODE OF SIGNALS. As Marryat's and others.

COMMISSARIAT. The department of supplies to the army.

COMMISSARY. The principal officer in charge of the commissariat.

COMMISSION. The authority by which an officer officiates in his post. Also, an allowance paid to agents or factors for transacting the business of others.

COMMISSIONED OFFICERS. Those appointed by commissions. Such are admirals, down to lieutenants, in the royal navy; and in the army, all from the general to the ensign inclusive.

COMMISSIONERS, LORDS, OF THE ADMIRALTY. In general the crown appoints five or seven commissioners for executing the office of lord high-admiral, &c.; for this important and high office has seldom been intrusted to any single person. The admiralty jurisdiction extends to all offences mentioned in the articles of war, or new naval code, as regards places beyond the powers of the law courts, or outside the bounds of a county. But all criminal acts committed within the limits of a county, or within a line drawn from one headland to the next, are specially liable to be tried by the common law courts. The high court of admiralty civil court takes cognizance of salvage, prize-derelict, collision, &c., at sea beyond the county limits, even as relates to ships of war if in fault.

COMMISSIONERS OF CUSTOMS. The board of management of the customs department of the public revenue.

COMMISSIONERS OF THE NAVY. Certain officers formerly appointed to superintend the affairs of the navy, under the direction of the lords-commissioners of the Admiralty. Their duty was more immediately concerned in the building, docking, and repairing of ships in the dockyards; they had also the appointment of some of the officers, as surgeons, masters, &c., and the transport, victualling, and medical departments were controlled by that board. It was abolished in 1831.

COMMIT ONE'S SELF, TO. To break through regulations. To incur responsibility without regard to results.

COMMODORE. A senior officer in command of a detached squadron. A captain finding five or six ships assembled, was formerly permitted to hoist his pennant, and command as commodore; and a necessity arising for holding a court-martial, he ordered the said court to assemble. Again, where an admiral dies in command, the senior captain hoists a first-class broad pennant, and appoints a captain, secretary, and flag-lieutenant, fulfils the duties of a rear-admiral, and wears the uniform. Commodores of the second class have no captain or pennant-lieutenant. A commodore rates with brigadier-generals, according to dates of commission (being of full colonel's rank). He is next in command to a rear-admiral, but cannot hoist his broad pennant in the presence of an admiral, or superior captain, without permission. The broad pennant is a swallow-tailed tapered burgee. The second-class commodore is to hoist his broad pennant, white at the fore. It is a title given by courtesy to the senior captain, where three or more ships of war are cruising in company. It was also imported into the East India Company's vessels, the senior being so termed, inter se. It moreover denotes the convoy ship, which carries a light in her top. The epithet is corrupted from the Spanish comendador.

COMMUNICATION. Corresponding by letter, hail, or signal. (See LINE OF COMMUNICATION and BOYAUX.)

COMMUTE, TO. To lighten the sentence of a court-martial, on a recommendation of the court to the commander-in-chief.

COMPANION. The framing and sash-lights upon the quarter-deck or round-house, through which light passes to the cabins and decks below; and a sort of wooden hood placed over the entrance or staircase of the master's cabin in small ships. Flush-decked vessels are generally fitted with movable companions, to keep the rain or water from descending, which are unshipped when the capstan is required.

COMPANION-LADDER. Denotes the ladder by which the officers ascend to, and descend from, the quarter-deck.

COMPANION-WAY. The staircase, porch, or berthing of the ladder-way to the cabin.

COMPANY. The whole crew of any ship, including her officers, men, and boys. In the army, a small body of foot, or subdivision of a regiment, commanded by a captain.

COMPARATIVE RANK. See RANK.

COMPARISON WATCH. The job-watch for taking an observation, compared before and after with the chronometer.

COMPARTMENT BULK-HEADS. Some of the iron ships have adopted the admirable Chinese plan of dividing the hold athwart-ship by strong water-tight bulk-heads, into compartments, so that a leak in any one of them does not communicate with the others—thus strengthening a vessel, besides adding to its security. Compartment bulk-heads were first directed to be fitted under the superintendence of Commander Belcher in H.M. ships Erebus and Terror at Chatham, for Arctic service in 1835. H.M.S. Terror, Commander Back, was saved entirely owing to this fitment, the after section being full of water all the passage home; and lately the mail packet Samphire was similarly saved.

COMPASANT. A corruption of corpo santo, a ball of electric light observed flickering about the masts, yard-arms, and rigging, during heavy rain, thunder, and lightning.

COMPASS. An instrument employed by navigators to guide the ship's course at sea. It consists of a circular box, containing a fly or paper card, which represents the horizon, and is suspended by two concentric rings called gimbals. The fly is divided into thirty-two equal parts, by lines drawn from the centre to the circumference, called points or rhumbs; the interval between the points is subdivided into 360 degrees—consequently, the distance or angle comprehended between any two rhumbs is equal to 11 degrees and 15 minutes. The four cardinal points lie opposite to each other; the north and south points form top and bottom, leaving the east on the right hand, and the west on the left; the names of all the inferior points are compounded of these according to their situation. This card is attached to a magnetic needle, which, carrying the card round with it, points north, excepting for the local annual variation and the deviation caused by the iron in the ship; the angle which the course makes with that meridian is shown by the lubber's point, a dark line inside the box. (See ADJUSTMENT OF THE COMPASS.)

COMPASS, TO. To curve; also to obtain one's object.

COMPASSING. (See COMPASS-TIMBERS.)

COMPASSIONATE ALLOWANCES. Grants are made on the compassionate fund to the legitimate children of deceased officers, on its being shown to the Admiralty that they deserve them.

COMPASS-SAW. A narrow saw, which, inserted in a hole bored by a centre-bit, follows out required curves.

COMPASS-TIMBERS. Such as are curved, crooked, or arched, for ship-building.

COMPENSATION. If a detained vessel is lost by the negligence and misconduct of the prize-master, compensation must be rendered, and the actual captors are responsible. The principal being answerable in law for the agent's acts.

COMPENSATOR OF THE COMPASS. See MAGNETIC COMPENSATOR.

COMPLAIN, TO. The creaking of masts, or timbers, when over-pressed, without any apparent external defect. One man threatening to complain of another, is saying that he will report misconduct to the officer in charge of the quarter-deck.

COMPLEMENT. The proper number of men employed in any ship, either for navigation or battle. In navigation the complement of the course is what it wants of eight points; of latitude, what it is short of 90 deg. (See CO-LATITUDE.)

COMPLEMENT OF LONGITUDE. See SUPPLEMENT OF LONGITUDE.

COMPLETE BOOK. A book which contains the names and particulars of every person borne for wages on board, as age, place of birth, rating, times of entry and discharge, &c.

COMPLIMENT, TO. To render naval or military honour where due.

COMPO. The monthly portion of wages paid to the ship's company.

COMPOSITION NAILS. Those which are made of mixed metal, and which, being largely used for nailing on copper sheathing, are erroneously called copper nails.

COMPOUND. A term used in India for a lawn garden, or inclosed ground round a house.

COMPRADOR [Sp]. A Chinese contractor in shipping concerns, or in purchasing present supplies.

COMPRESS. A pad of soft linen used by the surgeon for the dressing of a wound.

COMPRESSION OF THE POLES. The amount of flattening at the polar regions of a planet, by which the polar diameter is less than the equatorial.

COMPRESSOR. A mechanism generally adopted afloat for facilitating the working of the large guns recently introduced; the gun-carriage is thus compressed to its slide or platform during the recoil, and set free again by the turn of a handle for running up. It is of various forms; one of the simpler kind used to be always applied to carronade slides.

COMPRESSOR-STOPPER. A contrivance for holding the chain-cable by compression.

COMPROMISE. The mutual agreement of a party or parties at difference, to refer to arbitration, or make an end of the matter.

COMPTROLLER OF THE CUSTOMS. The officer who controls and has a check on the collectors of customs. (See CONTROLLER.)

COMPTROLLER OF THE NAVY. Formerly the chief commissioner of the navy board, at which he presided.

COMRADE. A barrack term for a fellow-soldier, serving in the same company.

CONCEALMENT, OR SUPPRESSIO VERI. Consists in the suppression of any fact or circumstance as to the state of the ship, the nature of her employ, and the time of sailing or expected arrival, material to the risk of insurance, and is fatal to the insured. But it is held immaterial to disclose the secret destination of privateers, the usages of trade, or matters equally open to both parties.

CONCENTRATED FIRE. The bringing the whole or several guns to bear on a single point.

CONCH. A large univalve, used as a horn by pilots, fishermen, &c., in fogs: a strombus, triton, or sometimes a murex.

CONCHS. A name for the wreckers of the Bahama reefs, in allusion to the shells on those shores. Though plunder is their object, the Conchs are very serviceable to humanity, and evince both courage and address in saving the lives of the wrecked.

CONCLUDING-LINE. A small rope hitched to the middle of the steps of the stern-ladders. Also, a small line leading through the centre of the steps of a Jacob's ladder.

CONDEMNATION. A captured ship declared by sentence of the admiralty court to be lawful prize. But the transfer of a prize vessel carried into a neutral port, and sold without a condemnation, or the authority of any judicial proceedings, is null and void.

CONDEMNED. Unserviceable, as bad provisions, old stores, &c.

CONDENSER. The chamber of a marine engine, where the steam, after having performed its duty, is instantly reduced to water. Sailing ships frequently carry condensers, for the purpose of making fresh from salt water.

CONDER. A watcher of fishes, the same as balker, huer, and olpis. See statute (1 Jac. cap. 23) relating to his employment, which was to give notice to the fishermen from an eminence which way the herring shoals were going.

CONDITIONS. The terms of surrender.

CONDUCT-LIST. A roll to accompany the tickets of all persons sent to a hospital for medical treatment; it details their names, numbers on the ship's books, the date of their being sent, and the nature of their ailment.

CONDUCT-MONEY. A sum advanced to defray the travelling expenses of volunteers, and of soldiers and sailors to their quarters and ships. (See SAFE-CONDUCT.)

CONDUCTOR. A thick metal wire, generally of copper, extending from above the main truck downwards into the water, or in the form of a chain with long links. Its use is to defend the ship from the effects of lightning, by conveying the electric fluid into the sea.

CONE. A solid figure having a circle for its base, and produced by the entire revolution of a right-angled triangle about its perpendicular side, which is termed the axis of the cone.

CONE-BUOY. See CAN-BUOYS.

CONEY-FISH. A name of the burbot.

CONFIGURATION. The relative positions of celestial bodies, as for instance those of Jupiter's satellites, with respect to the primary at any one time.

CONFINEMENT. Inflicted restraint; an arrest.

CONFIRMED RANK. When an officer is placed in a vacancy by "acting order," he only holds temporary rank until "confirmed" therein by the Admiralty. An acting order given by competent authority is not disturbed by any casual superior.

CONFLICT. An indecisive action.

CONFLUENTS. Those streams which join and flow together. The confluence is the point of junction of an affluent river with its recipient.

CONGER. A large species of sea-eel, furnishing a somewhat vile viand, but eatable when strongly curried. Not at all despised by the people of Cornwall in "fishy pie."

CONGREVE-ROCKET. A very powerful form of rocket, invented by the late Sir William Congreve, R.A., and intended to do the work of artillery without the inconvenience of its weight. In its present form, however, the rocket is so uncertain, that it is in little favour save for exceptional occasions.

CONICAL TOPS OF MOUNTAINS not unfrequently indicate their nature: the truncated sugar-loaf form is generally assumed by volcanoes, though the same is occasionally met with in other mountains.

CONIC SECTIONS. The curved lines and plane figures which are produced by the intersection of a plane with a cone.

CONJEE. Gruel made of rice.

CONJUGATE AXIS. The secondary diameter of an ellipse, perpendicular to the transverse axis.

CONJUNCTION, in nautical astronomy, is when two bodies have the same longitude or right ascension.

CONN, CON, OR CUN, as pronounced by seamen. This word is derived from the Anglo-Saxon conne, connan, to know, or be skilful. The pilot of old was skillful, and later the master was selected to conn the ship in action, that is, direct the helmsman. The quarter-master during ordinary watches conns the ship, and stands beside the wheel at the conn, unless close-hauled, when his station is at the weather-side, where he can see the weather-leeches of the sails.

CONNECTING-ROD. In the marine engine, the part which connects the side-levers and the crank together.

CONNINGS. Reckonings.

CONQUER, TO. To overcome decidedly.

CONSCRIPTION. Not only furnishes conscripts for the French army, but also levies a number of men who are compelled to serve afloat.

CONSECRATION OF COLOURS. A rite practised in the army, but not in the navy.

CONSIGN, TO. To send a consignment of goods to an agent or factor for sale or disposal.

CONSIGNEE. The party to whose care a ship or a consignment of goods is intrusted.

CONSIGNMENT. Goods assigned from beyond sea, or elsewhere, to a factor.

CONSOLE-BRACKET. A light piece of ornament at the fore-part of the quarter-gallery, otherwise called a canting-livre.

CONSORT. Any vessel keeping company with another.—In consort, ships sailing together in partnership.

CONSORTSHIP. The practice of two or more ships agreeing to join in adventure, under which a strict division of all prizes must be made. (See TON FOR TON.)

CONSTRUCTION. In naval architecture, is to give the ship such a form as may be most suitable for the service for which she is designed. In navigation, it is the method of ascertaining a ship's course by trigonometrical diagrams. (See INSPECTION.)

CONSTRUCTIVE TOTAL LOSS. When the repair of damage sustained by the perils of the sea would cost more than the ship would be worth after being repaired.

CONSUL. An officer established by a commission from the crown, in all foreign countries of any considerable trade, to facilitate business, and represent the merchants of his nation. They take rank with captains, but are to wait on them if a boat be sent. Commanders wait on consuls, but vice-consuls wait on commanders (in Etiquette). Ministers and charges d'affaires retire in case of hostilities, but consuls are permitted to remain to watch the interests of their countrymen. When commerce began to flourish in modern Europe, occasion soon arose for the institution of a kind of court-merchant, to determine commercial affairs in a summary way. Their authority depends very much on their commission, and on the words of the treaty on which it is founded. The consuls are to take care of the affairs of the trade, and of the rights, interests, and privileges of their countrymen in foreign ports. Not being public ministers, they are liable to the lex loci both civil and criminal, and their exemption from certain taxes depends upon treaty and custom.

CONTACT. Brought in contact with, as touching the sides of a ship. In astronomy, bringing a reflected body, as the sun, in contact with the moon or with a star. (See LUNAR DISTANCES, SEXTANT, &c.)

CONTENTS. A document which the master of a merchantman must deliver to the custom-house searcher, before he can clear outwards; it describes the vessel's destination, cargo, and all necessary particulars.

CONTINENT. In geography, a large extent of land which is not entirely surrounded by water, or separated from other lands by the sea, as Europe, Asia, and Africa. It is also used in contradistinction to island, though America seems insulated.

CONTINGENT. The quota of armed men, or pecuniary subsidy, which one state gives to another. Also, certain allowances made to commanding officers to defray necessary expenses.

CONTINUED LINES. In field-works, means a succession of fronts without any interruption, save the necessary passages; differing thus from interrupted lines.

CONTINUOUS SERVICE MEN. Those seamen who, having entered for a period, on being paid off, are permitted to have leave, and return to the flag-ship at the port for general service.

CONT-LINE. The space between the bilges of two casks stowed side by side.

CONTOUR. The sweep of a ship's shape.

CONTRABAND. The ship is involved in the legal fate of the cargo; the master should therefore be careful not to take any goods on board without all custom-house duties being paid up, and see that they be not prohibited by parliament or public proclamation. Contraband is simply defined, "merchandise forbidden by the law of nations to be supplied to an enemy;" but it affords fat dodges to the admiralty court sharks.

CONTRABAND OF WAR. Arms, ammunition, and all stores which may aid hostilities; masts, ship-timber going to an enemy's port, hemp, provisions, and even money under stipulations, pitch and tar, sail-cloth. They must, however, be taken in delicto, in the actual prosecution of a voyage to the enemy's port.

CONTRACT OF AFFREIGHTMENT. The agreement for the letting to freight the whole or any part of a vessel for one or more voyages; the charter-party.

CONTRACT TICKET. A printed form of agreement with every passenger in a passenger-ship, prescribed by the legislature.

CONTRARY. The wind when opposed to a vessel's course.

"Cruel was the stately ship that bore her love from Mary, And cruel was the fair wind that wouldn't blow contrary."

CONTRAVALLATION, LINES OF. Continuous lines of intrenchment round the besieged fortress, and fronting towards it, to guard against any sorties from the place. (See CIRCUMVALLATION.)

CONTRIBUTION. Money paid in order to save a place from being plundered by a hostile force. (See RANSOM.) Also, a sum raised among merchants, where goods have been thrown overboard in stress of weather, towards the loss of the owners thereof.

CONTROLLER. Differs from comptroller, which applies chiefly to the duties of an accompt. But the controller of the navy controls naval matters in ship-building, fitting, &c. There is also the controller of victualling, and the controller-general of the coast-guard.

CONTUMACY. The not appearing to the three calls of the admiralty court, after the allegation has been presented to the judge, with a schedule of expenses to be taxed, and an oath of their necessity.

CONVALESCENT. Those men who are recovering health, but not sufficiently recovered to perform their duties, are reported by the surgeon "convalescent." Convalescents are amused by picking oakum!

CONVENIENT PORT. A general law-term in cases of capture, within a certain latitude of discretion; a place where a vessel can lie in safety, and holding ready communication with the tribunals which have to decide the question of capture.

CONVENTION. An agreement made between hostile troops, for the evacuation of a post, or the suspension of hostilities.

CONVERGENT. In geography, a stream which comes into another stream, but whose course is unknown, is simply a convergent.

CONVERSION. Reducing a vessel by a deck, thereby converting a line-of-battle ship into a frigate, or a crank three-decker into a good two-decker; or a serviceable vessel into a hulk, resembling a prison or dungeon, internally and externally, as much as possible.

CONVERSION OF STORES. Adapting the sails, ropes, or timbers from one purpose to another, with the least possible waste.

CONVEXITY. The curved limb of the moon; an outward curve.

CONVICT-SHIP. A vessel appropriated to the convicts of a dockyard; also one hired to carry out convicts to their destination.

CONVOY. A fleet of merchant ships similarly bound, protected by an armed force. Also, the ship or ships appointed to conduct and defend them on their passage. Also, a guard of troops to escort a supply of stores to a detached force.

CONVOY-INSTRUCTIONS. The printed regulations supplied by the senior officer to each ship of the convoy.

CONVOY-LIST. A return of the merchantmen placed under the protection of men-of-war, for safe conduct to their destination.

COOK. A man of each mess who is caterer for the day, and answerable too, wherefore he is allowed the surplus grog, termed plush (which see). The cook, par excellence, in the navy, was a man of importance, responsible for the proper cooking of the food, yet not overboiling the meat to extract the fat—his perquisite. The coppers were closely inspected daily by the captain, and if they soiled a cambric handkerchief the cook's allowance was stopped. Now, the ship's cook is a first-class petty officer, and cannot be punished as heretofore. In a merchantman the cook is, ex officio, the hero of the fore-sheet, as the steward is of the main one.

COOKING A DAY'S WORK. To save the officer in charge. Reckoning too is cooked, as in a certain Antarctic discovery of land, which James Ross afterwards sailed over.

COOK-ROOM, OR COOK-HOUSE. The galley or caboose containing the cooking apparatus, and where victuals are dressed.

COOLIE, COULEY, KOULI, OR CHULIAH. A person who carries a load; a porter or day-labourer in India and China.

COOMB. The Anglo-Saxon comb; a low place inclosed with hills; a valley. (See CWM.)

COOMINGS, OR COMBINGS. The rim of the hatchways. (See COAMINGS.)

COOM OF A WAVE. The comb or crest. The white summit when it breaks.

COON-TRAIE. A Manx and Erse term for the neap-tide.

COOP, OR FISH-COOP. A hollow vessel made with twigs, with which fish are taken in the Humber. (See HEN-COOP.)

COOPER. A rating for a first-class petty officer, who repairs casks, &c.

COOT. A water-fowl common on lakes and rivers (Fulica atra). The toes are long and not webbed, but bordered by a scalloped membrane. The name is sometimes used for the guillemot (Uria troile), and often applied to a stupid person.

COOTH. See CUTH.

COP, OR COPT. The top of a conical hill.

COPE. An old English word for cape.

COPECK. See KOPEK.

COPERNICAN SYSTEM. The Pythagorean system of the universe, revived by Copernicus in the sixteenth century, and now confirmed; in which the sun occupies the central space, and the planets with their attendant satellites revolve about him.

COPILL. An old term for a variety of the coble.

COPING. In ship-building, turning the ends of iron lodging-knees, so that they may hook into the beams.

COPPER, TO. To cover the ship's bottom with prepared copper.

COPPER-BOLTS. See COPPER-FASTENED.

COPPERED, OR COPPER-BOTTOMED. Sheathed with thin sheets of copper, which prevents the teredo eating into the planks, or shell and weed accumulating on the surface, whereby a ship is retarded in her sailing.

COPPER-FASTENED. The bolts and other metal work in the bottom of ships, made of copper instead of iron, so that the vessel may afterwards be coppered without danger of its corroding the heads of the bolts by galvanic action, as ensues when copper and iron are in contact with sea-water.

COPPER-NAILS. These are chiefly used in boat-building, and for plank nails in the vicinity of the binnacle, as iron affects the compass-needle. They are not to be confounded with composition nails, which are cast. (See ROOF, OR ROVE and CLINCH.)

COPPERS. The ship's boilers for cooking; the name is generally used, even where the apparatus may be made of iron.

COQUILLAGE. Shell-fish in general. It applies to anchorages where oysters abound, or where fish are plentiful, and shell-fish for bait easily obtainable. It is specially a term belonging to French and Spanish fishermen.

CORAB. A sort of boat, otherwise called coracle.

CORACLE. An ancient British truckle or boat, constructed of wicker-work, and still in use amongst Welsh fishermen and on the Irish lakes. It is covered by skins, oil-cloth, &c., which are removed when out of use; it is of an oval form; contains one man, who, on reaching the shore, shoulders his coracle, deposits it in safety, and covers it with dried rushes or heather. The Arctic baidar is of similar construction. It is probably of the like primitive fabric with the cymba sutiles of Herodotus.

CORACORA. See KOROCORA.

CORAL. A name applied to the hard calcareous support or skeleton of many species of marine zoophytes. The coral-producing animals abound chiefly in tropical seas, sometimes forming, by the aggregated growth of countless generations, reefs, barriers, and islands of vast extent. The "red coral" (Corallium rubrum) of the Mediterranean is highly prized for ornamental purposes.

CORALAN. A small open boat for the Mediterranean coral fishery.

CORAL-BAND. See SAND AND CORAL BANK or ISLET.

CORBEILLE [Fr. basket]. Miner's basket; small gabion used temporarily for shelter to riflemen, and placed on the parapet, either to fire through, or for protection from a force placed on a higher level.

CORBILLARD [Fr.] A large boat of transport.

CORD. Small rope; that of an inch or less in circumference.

CORD OR CHURD OF WOOD; as firewood. A statute stack is 8 feet long, 4 feet broad, and 4 feet high.

CORDAGE. A general term for the running-rigging of a ship, as also for rope of any size which is kept in reserve, and for all stuff to make ropes.—Cable-laid cordage. Ropes, the three strands of which are composed of three other strands, as are cables and cablets. (See ROPE.)

CORDILLA. The coarse German hemp, otherwise called torse.

CORDLIE. A name for the tunny fish.

CORDON. In fortification, the horizontal moulding of masonry along the top of the true escarp. Also, sometimes used for lines of circumvallation or blockade, or any connected chain of troops or even sentries. Also, the riband of an order of knighthood or honour, and hence used by the French as signifying a member thereof, as Cordon bleu, Knight of the order of the Holy Ghost, &c.

CORDOVAN. Leather made from seal-skin; the term is derived from the superior leather prepared at Cordova in Spain.

CORDUROY. Applied to roads formed in new settlements, of trees laid roughly on sleepers transverse to the direction of the road; as suddenly for artillery.

CORKIR, OR CUDBEAR. The Lecanora tartarea, a lichen producing a purple dye, growing on the stones of the Western Isles, and in Norway.

CORMORANT. A well-known sea-bird (Phalacrocorax carbo) of the family Pelecanidae.

CORN, TO. A remainder of the Anglo-Saxon ge-cyrned, salted. To preserve meat for a time by salting it slightly.

CORNED. Slightly intoxicated. In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, mention is made of "corny ale."

CORNED POWDER. Powder granulated from the mill-cakes and sifted.

CORNET. A commissioned officer who carries the colours belonging to a cavalry troop, equivalent to an ensign in the infantry; the junior subaltern rank in the horse.

CORNISH RING. The astragal of the muzzle or neck of a gun; it is the next ring from the mouth backwards. (Now disused.)

CORN-SALAD. A species of Valerianella. The top-leaves are used for salad, a good anti-scorbutic with vinegar.

CORNS OF POWDER. The small grains that gunpowder consists of. The powder reduced for fire-works, quill-tubes, &c.; sometimes by alcohol.

COROMONTINES. A peculiar race of negroes, brought from the interior of Africa, and sold; but so ferocious as to be greatly dreaded in the West Indies.

CORONA. In timber, consists of rows of microscopic cylinders, situated between the wood and the pith; it is that part from which all the branches take their rise, and from it all the wood-threads grow.—Corona astronomically means the luminous ring or glory which surrounds the sun or moon during an eclipse, or the intervention of a thin cloud. They are generally faintly coloured at their edges. Frequently when there is a halo encircling the moon, there is a small corona more immediately around it. Coronae, as well as halos, have been observed to prognosticate rain, hail, or snow, being the result of snow or dense vapours nearer the earth, through which the object becomes hazy.

CORONER. An important officer. Seamen should understand that his duties embrace all acts within a line drawn from one headland to another; or within the body of the county. His duty is to investigate, on the part of the crown, all accidents, deaths, wrecks, &c.; and his warrant is not to be contemned or avoided.

COROUSE. The ancient weapon invented by Duilius for boarding. An attempt was made in 1798 to re-introduce it in French privateers.

COROWNEL. The old word for colonel.

CORPHOUN. An out-of-the-way name for a herring.

CORPORAL, SHIP'S. In a ship of war was, under the master-at-arms, employed to teach the sailors the use of small arms; to attend at the gangways when entering ports, and see that no spirituous liquors were brought on board without leave. Also, to extinguish the fire and candles at eight o'clock in winter, and nine o'clock in summer, when the evening gun was fired; and to see that there were no lights below, but such as were under the charge of the proper sentinels. In the marines or army in general the corporal is a non-commissioned officer next below the sergeant in the scale of authority. The ship's corporal of the present day is the superior of the first-class working petty officers, and solely attends to police matters under the master-at-arms or superintendent-in-chief.

CORPORAL OATH. So called because the witness when he swears lays his right hand on the holy evangelists, or New Testament.

CORPOSANT. [Corpo santo, Ital.] See COMPASANT.

CORPS. Any body of troops acting under one commander.

CORPSE. Jack's term for the party of marines embarked; the corps.

CORRECTIONS. Reductions of observations of the sun, moon, or stars.

CORRIDOR. See COVERT-WAY.

CORRYNE POWDER. Corn-powder, a fine kind of gunpowder.

CORSAIR. A name commonly given to the piratical cruisers of Barbary, who frequently plundered the merchant ships indiscriminately.

CORSELET. The old name for a piece of armour used to cover the body of a fighting-man.

CORTEGE. The official staff, civil or military.

CORUSCATIONS. Atmospheric flashes of light, as in auroras.

CORVETTES. Flush-decked ships, equipped with one tier of guns: fine vessels for warm climates, from admitting a free circulation of air. The Bermuda-built corvettes were deemed superior vessels, swift, weatherly, "lie to" well, and carry sail in a stiff breeze. The cedar of which they are chiefly built is very buoyant, but also brittle.

CORVORANT. An old mode of spelling cormorant.

COSIER. A lubber, a botcher, a tailoring fellow [coser, Sp. to sew?]

COSMICAL RISING AND SETTING OF THE HEAVENLY BODIES. Their rising and setting with the sun.

COSMOGRAPHER. Formerly applied to "too clever by half." Now, one who describes the world or universe in all its parts.

COSS. A measure of distance in India, varying in different districts from one mile and a half to two miles.

COSTAL. Relating to the coast.

COSTEIE. An old English word for going by the coast.

COSTERA. A law archaism for the sea-coast.

COSTS AND DAMAGE. Demurrage is generally given against a captor for unjustifiable detention. Where English merchants provoke expense by using false papers, the court decrees the captors their expenses on restitution. (See EXPENSES.)

COT. A wooden bed-frame suspended from the beams of a ship for the officers, between decks. It is inclosed in canvas, sewed in the form of a chest, about 6 feet long, 1 foot deep, and 2 or 3 feet wide, in which the mattress is laid.

COTT. An old term for a little boat.

COTTON, GUN. See GUN-COTTON.

COTTONINA. The thick sail-cloth of the Levant.

COUBAIS. An ornamented Japanese barge of forty oars.

COUD. An old term used for conn or cunn.

COULTER-NEB. A name of the puffin (Fratercula arctica).

COUNCIL-OF-WAR. The assemblage of officers for concerting measures of moment, too often deemed the symbol of irresolution in the commander-in-chief.

COUNTER. A term which enters into the composition of divers words of our language, and generally implies opposition, as counter-brace, counter-current, &c.—Counter of a ship, refers to her after-seat on the water: the counter above extends from the gun-deck line, or lower ribbon moulding of the cabin windows, to the water-line (or seat of water); the lower counter is arched below that line, and constitutes the hollow run. It is formed on the transom-buttocks.

COUNTER-APPROACHES. Works effected outside the place by the garrison during a siege, to enfilade, command, or otherwise check the approaches of the besieger.

COUNTER-BALANCE WEIGHT, in the marine engine. (See LEVER.) Also in many marine barometers, where it slides and is fixed by adjusting screws, so as to produce an even-balanced swing, free from jerk.

COUNTER-BRACE, TO. Is bracing the head-yards one way, and the after-yards another. The counter-brace is the lee-brace of the fore-topsail-yard, but is only distinguished by this name at the time of the ship's going about (called tacking), when the sail begins to shiver in the wind, this brace is hauled in to flatten the sail against the lee-side of the top-mast, and increase the effect of the wind in forcing her round. Counter-bracing becomes necessary to render the vessel stationary when sounding, lowering a boat, or speaking a stranger. It is now an obsolete term, and the man[oe]uvre is called heaving-to.

COUNTER-CURRENT. That portion of water diverted from the main stream of a current by the particular formation of the coast or other obstruction, and which therefore runs in a contrary direction. There is also a current formed under the lee-counter of a ship when going through the water, which retains floating objects there, and is fatal to a man, by sucking him under.

COUNTERFORTS. Masonry adjuncts, advantageous to all retaining walls, but especially to those which, like the escarps of fortresses, are liable to be battered. They are attached at regular intervals to the hinder face of the wall, and perpendicular to it; having various proportions, but generally the same height as the wall; they hold it from being thrust forward from behind, and, even when it is battered away, retain the earth at the back at such a steep slope that the formation of a practicable breach remains very difficult. When arches are turned between the counterforts, the strength of the whole structure is much increased: it is then called a counter-arched revetement.

COUNTERGUARD. In fortification, a smaller rampart raised in front of a larger one, principally with the intention of delaying for a period the besieger's attack. Other means, however, are generally preferred in modern times, except when a rapid fall in the ground renders it difficult to cover the main escarp by ordinary resources.

COUNTER-LINE. A word often used for contravallation.

COUNTERMARCH. To change the direction of a march to its exact opposite. In some military movements this involves the changing of front and wings.

COUNTERMINES. Military defensive mines: they may be arranged on a system for the protection of the whole of a front of fortification by the discovering and blowing up not only the subterranean approaches of the besieger, but also his more important lodgments above.

COUNTER-MOULD. The converse of mould (which see).

COUNTER-RAILS. The balustrade work, or ornamental moulding across a square stern, where the counter terminates.

COUNTERSCARP. In fortification, the outer side of the ditch next the country; it is usually of less height, and less strongly revetted than the escarp, the side which forms the face of the rampart.

COUNTER-SEA. The disturbed state of the sea after a gale, when, the wind having changed, the sea still runs in its old direction.

COUNTERSIGN. A particular word or number which is exchanged between sentinels, and intrusted to those on duty. (See PAROLE.)

COUNTER-SUNK. Those holes which are made for the heads of bolts or nails to be sunk in, so as to be even with the general surface.

COUNTER-TIMBERS. Short right-aft timbers for the purpose of strengthening the counter, and forming the stern.

COUNTER-TRENCHES. See COUNTER-APPROACHES.

COUNTRY. A term synonymous with station. The place whither a ship happens to be ordered.

COUP DE GRACE. The finishing shot which brings an enemy to surrender; or the wound which deprives an adversary of life or resistance.

COUP DE MAIN. A sudden and vigorous attack.

COUP D'[OE]IL. The skill of distinguishing, at first sight, the weakness of an enemy's position, as Nelson did at the Nile.

COUPLE, TO. To bend two hawsers together; coupling links of a cable; coupling shackles.

COUREAU. A small yawl of the Garonne. Also, a narrow strait or channel.

COURSE. The direction taken by anything in motion, shown by the point of the compass towards which they run, as water in a river, tides, and currents; but of the wind, as similarly indicated by the compass-point from which it blows. Course is also the ship's way. In common parlance, it is the point of the compass upon which the ship sails, the direction in which she proceeds, or is intended to go. When the wind is foul, she cannot "lie her course;" if free, she "steers her course."

COURSES. A name by which the sails hanging from the lower yards of a ship are usually distinguished, viz. the main-sail, fore-sail, and mizen: the staysails upon the lower masts are sometimes also comprehended in this denomination, as are the main staysails of all brigs and schooners. A ship is under her courses when she has no sail set but the fore-sail, main-sail, and mizen. Trysails are courses (which see), sometimes termed bentincks.

COURSET. The paper on which the night's course is set for the officer in charge of the watch.

COURT-MARTIAL. A tribunal held under an act of parliament, of the year 1749, and not, like the mutiny act, requiring yearly re-enactment. It has lately, 6th August, 1861, been changed to the "Naval Discipline Act." At present a court may be composed of five, but must not exceed nine, members. No officer shall sit who is under twenty-one years of age. No flag-officer can be tried unless the president also be a flag-officer, and the others flag, or captains. No captain shall be tried unless the president be of higher rank, and the others captains and commanders. No court for the trial of any officer, or person below the rank of captain, shall be legal, unless the president is a captain, or of higher rank, nor unless, in addition, there be two other officers of the rank of commander, or of higher rank. Any witness summoned—civil, naval, or military—by the judge-advocate, refusing to attend or give evidence, to be punished as for same in civil courts. The admiralty can issue commissions to officers to hold courts-martial on foreign stations, without which they cannot be convened. A commander-in-chief on a foreign station, holding such a commission, may under his hand authorize an officer in command of a detached portion to hold courts-martial. Formerly all officers composing the court, attendants, witnesses, &c., were compelled to appear in their full-dress uniforms; but by recent orders, the undress uniform, with cocked hat and sword, is to be worn.

COUTEL. A military implement which served both for a knife and a dagger.

COUTERE. A piece of armour which covered the elbow.

COVE. An inlet in a coast, sometimes extensive, as the Cove of Cork. In naval architecture, the arched moulding sunk in at the foot or lower part of the taffrail.—My cove, a familiar friendly term.

COVER. Security from attack or interruption, as under cover of the ship's guns, under cover of the parapet. In the field exercise and drill of troops, one body is said to cover another exactly in rear of it. Covers for sails when furled (to protect them from the weather when loosing and airing them is precluded), are made of strong canvas painted.

COVERED WAY. In fortification, a space running along the outside of the ditch for the convenient passage of troops and guns, covered from the country by a palisading and the parapet of the glacis. It is of importance to an active defence, as besides enabling a powerful musketry fire to be poured on the near approaches of the besieger, it affords to the garrison a secure base from which to sally in force at any hour of the day or night.

COVERING-BOARD. See PLANK-SHEER.

COVERING-PARTY. A force detached to protect a party sent on especial duty.

COVERT-WAY. See COVERED WAY.

COW. Applied by whalers to the female whale.—To cow. To depress with fear.

COWARDICE, AND DESERTION OF DUTY IN FIGHT. Are criminal by law, even in the crew of a merchant-ship. Such poltroonery is very rare.

COWD. To float slowly. A Scotch term, as "the boat cowds braely awa."

COW-HITCH. A slippery or lubberly hitch.

COWHORN. The seaman's appellation of the coehorn.

COWIE. A name among Scotch fishermen for the porpoise.

COWL. The cover of a funnel.

COWRIE. Small shells, Cypraea moneta, used for money or barter in Africa and the East Indies.

COXSON, OR COXON. See COCKSWAIN.

COX'S TRAVERSE. Up one hatchway and down another, to elude duty. (See TOM COX.)

C.P. Mark for men sent by civil power.

CRAB. A wooden pillar, the lower end of which being let down through a ship's decks, rests upon a socket like the capstan, and having in its upper end three or four holes at different heights, long oars are thrust through them, each acting like two levers. It is employed to wind in the cable, or any other weighty matter. Also, a portable wooden or cast-iron machine, fitted with wheels and pinions similar to those of a winch, of use in loading and discharging timber-vessels, &c.—The crab with three claws, is used to launch ships, and to heave them into the dock, or off the key.—To catch a crab. To pull an oar too light or too deep in the water; to miss time in rowing. This derisive phrase for a false stroke may have been derived from the Italian chiappar un gragno, to express the same action.

CRABBING TO IT. Carrying an over-press of sail in a fresh gale, by which a ship crabs or drifts sideways to leeward.

CRABBLER. See KRABLA.

CRAB-BOAT. Resembles a large jolly-boat.

CRAB-CAPSTAN. See CRAB.

CRAB-WINDLASS. A light windlass for barges.

CRAB-YAWS. See YAW.

CRACK. "In a crack," immediately.

CRACKER. So named from the noise it makes in exploding; it is applied to a small pistol. Also, to a little hard cabin biscuit, so called from its noise in breaking.

CRACKNEL. A small bark. Also, biscuits (see 1 Ki. xiv. 3).

CRACK OFFICER. One of the best class.

CRACK ON, TO. To carry all sail.

CRACK-ORDER. High regularity.

CRACK-SHIP. One uncommonly smart in her evolutions and discipline, perhaps from the old English word for a fine boy. Crack is generally used for first-rate or excellent.

CRADLE. A frame consisting of bilge-ways, poppets, &c., on the principle of the wedge, placed under the bottom of a ship, and resting on the ways on which it slips, thus launching her steadily into the water, at which time it supports her weight while she slides down the greased ways. The cradle being the support of the ship, she carries it with her into the water, when, becoming buoyant, the frame separates from the hull, floats on the surface, and is again collected for similar purposes.

CRADLES. Standing bedsteads made up for wounded seamen, that they may be more comfortable than is possible in a hammock. Boats' chocks are sometimes called cradles.

CRAFT [from the Anglo-Saxon word craeft, a trading vessel]. It is now a general name for lighters, hoys, barges, &c., employed to load or land any goods or stores.—Small craft. The small vessels of war attendant on a fleet, such as cutters, schooners, gunboats, &c., generally commanded by lieutenants. Craft is also a term in sea-phraseology for every kind of vessel, especially for a favourite ship. Also, all manner of nets, lines, hooks, &c., used in fishing.

CRAG. A precipitous cliff whose strata if vertical, or nearly so, subdivide into points.

CRAGER. A small river lighter, mentioned in our early statutes.

CRAGSMAN. One who climbs cliffs overhanging the sea to procure sea-fowls, or their eggs.

CRAIG-FLOOK. The smear-dab, or rock-flounder.

CRAIK, OR CRAKE. A ship; a diminutive corrupted from carrack.

CRAIL. See KREEL.

CRAIL-CAPON. A haddock dried without being split.

CRAKERS. Choice soldiers (temp. Henry VIII.) Perhaps managers of the crakys, and therefore early artillery.

CRAKYS. An old term for great guns.

CRAMP. A machine to facilitate the screwing of two pieces of timber together.

CRAMPER. A yarn or twine worn round the leg as a remedy against cramp.

CRAMPETS. The cramp rings of a sword scabbard. Ferrule to a staff.

CRAMPINGS. A nautical phrase to express the fetters and bolts for offenders.

CRAMPOON. See CREEPER.

CRANAGE. The money paid for the use of a wharf crane. Also, the permission to use a crane at any wharf or pier.

CRANCE. A sort of iron cap on the outer end of the bowsprit, through which the jib-boom traverses. The name is not unfrequently applied to any boom-iron.

CRANE. A machine for raising and lowering great weights, by which timber and stores are hoisted upon wharfs, &c. Also, a kind of catapult for casting stones in ancient warfare. Also, pieces of iron, or timber at a vessel's sides, used to stow boats or spars upon. Also, as many fresh or green unsalted herrings as would fill a barrel.

CRANE-BARGE. A low flat-floored lump, fitted for the purpose of carrying a crane, in aid of marine works.

CRANE-LINES. Those which formerly went from the spritsail-topmast to the middle of the fore-stay, serving to steady the former. Also, small lines for keeping the lee backstays from chafing against the yards.

CRANG. The carcass of a whale after being flinched or the blubber stripped off.

CRANK, OR CRANK-SIDED. A vessel, by her construction or her stowage, inclined to lean over a great deal, or from insufficient ballast or cargo incapable of carrying sail, without danger of overturning. The opposite term is stiff, or the quality of standing well up to her canvas.—Cranky expresses a foolish capriciousness. Ships built too deep in proportion to their breadth are notoriously crank.—Crank by the ground, is a ship whose floor is so narrow that she cannot be brought on the ground without danger.

CRANK-HATCHES. Are raised coamings on a steamer's deck, to form coverings for the cranks of the engines below.

CRANK-PIN. In steam machinery, it goes through both arms of the crank at their extremities; to this pin the connecting-rod is attached.

CRANKS OF A MARINE ENGINE; eccentric, as in a turning-lathe. The bend or knee pinned on the shafts, by which they are moved round with a circular motion. Also, iron handles for working pumps, windlasses, &c. Also, erect iron forks on the quarter-deck for the capstan-bars, or other things, to be stowed thereon. Also, the axis and handle of a grindstone. Also, an old term for the sudden or frequent involutions of the planets in their orbits.

CRANK-SHAFT. In a steamer. (See INTERMEDIATE SHAFT.)

CRAPPO, OR GENERAL CRAPAUD. Jack's name for a Frenchman, one whom he thinks would be a better sailor if he would but talk English instead of French.

CRARE, OR CRAYER. A slow unwieldy trading vessel of olden times. Thus Shakspeare, in Cymbeline, with hydrographic parlance:—

"Who ever yet could sound thy bottom? Find The ooze, to show what coast thy sluggish crare Might easiliest harbour in?"

CRATER OF A MINE. Synonymous with funnel (which see).

CRAVAISE. An Anglo-Norman word for cray-fish.

CRAVEN. An old term synonymous with recreant (which see).

CRAWL. A sort of pen, formed by a barrier of stakes and hurdles on the sea-coast, to contain fish or turtle. On the coast of Africa, a pen for slaves awaiting shipment.

CRAWLING OFF. Working off a lee-shore by slow degrees.

CRAY-FISH. A lobster-like crustacean (Astacus fluviatilis) found in fresh-water.

CRAZY. Said of a ship in a bad state.

CREAK. The straining noise made by timbers, cabin bulk-heads, and spars in rolling.

CREAR. A kind of Scotch lighter. (See CRARE.)

CREEK. A narrow inlet of the sea shoaling suddenly. Also, the channels connecting the several branches of a river and lake islands, and one lake or lagoon with another. It differs from a cove, in being proportionately deeper and narrower. In law, it is part of a haven where anything is landed from the sea.

CREEL, OR CRUE, for fishing. See KREEL.

CREENGAL. See CRINGLE.

CREEPER. A small grapnel (iron instrument with four claws) for dragging for articles dropped overboard in harbour. When anything falls, a dish or other white object thrown immediately after it will greatly guide the creeping.

CREES. See KRIS.

CREMAILLEE. More commonly called indented (which see), with regard to lines or parapets.

CRENELLE. A loop-hole in a fortress.

CRENG. See KRANG.

CREOLE. This term applies in the West Indies and Spanish America, &c., to a person of European and unmixed origin, but colonial born.

CREPUSCULUM. See TWILIGHT.

CRESPIE. A northern term for a small whale or a grampus.

CRESSET. A beacon light set on a watch-tower.

CRESSIT. A small crease or dagger.

CREST. The highest part of a mountain, or range of mountains, and the summit of a sea-wave.

CREW. Comprehends every officer and man on board ship, borne as complement on the books. There are in ships of war several particular crews or gangs, as the gunner's, carpenter's, sail-maker's, blacksmith's, armourer's, and cooper's crews.

CRIB. A small berth in a packet.

CRICK. A small jack-screw.

CRIMPS. Detested agents who trepan seamen, by treating, advancing money, &c., by which the dupes become indebted, and when well plied with liquor are induced to sign articles, and are shipped off, only discovering their mistake on finding themselves at sea robbed of all they possessed.

CRINGLE. A short piece of rope worked grommet fashion into the bolt-rope of a sail, and containing a metal ring or thimble. The use of the cringle is generally to hold the end of some rope, which is fastened thereto for the purpose of drawing up the sail to its yard, or extending the skirts or leech by means of bowline bridles, to stand upon a side-wind. The word seems to be derived from the old English crencled, or circularly formed. Cringles should be made of the strands of new bolt-rope. Those for the reef and reef-tackle pendant are stuck through holes made in the tablings.

CRINKYL. The cringle or loop in the leech of a sail.

CRIPPLE, TO. To disable an enemy's ship by wounding his masts, yards, and steerage gear, thereby placing him hors de combat.

CRISS-CROSS. The mark of a man who cannot write his name.

CROAKER. A tropical fish which makes a cris-cris noise.

CROAKY. A term applied to plank when it curves much in short lengths.

CROCHERT. A hagbut or hand cannon, anciently in use.

CROCK [Anglo-Saxon, croca]. An earthen mess-vessel, and the usual vegetables were called crock-herbs. In the Faerie Queene Spenser cites the utensil:—

"Therefore the vulgar did aboute him flocke, Like foolish flies about an honey-crocke."

CROCODILES. A designation for those who served in Egypt under Lord Keith.

CROJEK. The mode of pronouncing cross-jack (which see).

CRONNAG. In the Manx and Erse, signifies a rock that can be seen before low-water.

CROOKED-CATCH. An iron implement bent in the form of the letter S.

CROOKS. Crooked timbers. Short arms or branches of trees.

CROONER. The gray gurnard (Trigla gurnardus), so called on account of the creaking noise it makes after being taken.

CROSS-BARS. Round bars of iron, bent at each end, used as levers to turn the shank of an anchor.

CROSS-BAR-SHOT. The famed cross-bar-shot, or properly bar-shot, used by the Americans: when folded it presented a bar or complete shot, and could thus be placed in the gun. But as it left the muzzle it expanded to a cross, with four quarters of a shot at its radial points. It was used to destroy the rigging as well as do execution amongst men.

CROSS-BITT. The same as cross-piece (which see).

CROSS-BORED. Bored with holes alternately on the edges of planks, to separate the fastenings, so as to avoid splitting the timbers or beams.

CROSS-BOW. An ancient weapon of our fleet, when also in use on shore.

CROSS-CHOCKS. Large pieces of timber fayed across the dead-wood amidships, to make good the deficiency of the heels of the lower futtocks.

CROSS-FISH. A northern name for the asterias or star-fish; so called from the Norwegian kors-fisk. Also, the Uraster rubens.

CROSS-GRAINED. Not straight-grained as in good wood; hence the perverse and vexatious disposition of the ne'er-do-wells. As Cotton's Juno—

"That cross-grained, peevish, scolding queen."

CROSS-HEAD. In a steamer's engine, is on the top of the piston-rod athwart the cylinder; and there is another fitted to the air-pump, both having side-rods. (See CYLINDER CROSS-HEAD.)

CROSSING A SHIP'S WAKE. When a ship sails over the transient track which another has just passed, i.e. passes close astern of her.

CROSSING THE CABLES IN THE HATCHWAY. A method by which the operation of coiling is facilitated; it alludes to hempen cables, which are now seldom used.

CROSS IN THE HAWSE. Is when a ship moored with two anchors from the bows has swung the wrong way once, whereby the two cables lie across each other.—To cross a vessel's hawse is to sail across the line of her course, a little ahead of her.

CROSSJACK-YARD [pronounced crojeck-yard]. The lower yard on the mizen-mast, to the arms of which the clues of the mizen top-sail are extended. The term is applied to any fore-and-aft vessels setting a square-sail, flying, below the lower cross-trees. It is now very common in merchant ships to set a sail called a cross-jack upon this yard.