ARTIFICER. One who works by hand in wood or metal; generally termed an idler on board, from his not keeping night-watch, and only appearing on deck duty when the hands are turned up.

ARTIFICIAL EYE. An eye worked in the end of rope, which is neater but not so strong as a spliced eye.

ARTIFICIAL HORIZON. An artificial means of catching the altitude of a celestial body when the sea horizon is obscured by fog, darkness, or the intervention of land; a simple one is still the greatest desideratum of navigators. Also a trough filled with pure mercury, used on land, wherein the double altitude of a celestial body is reflected.

ARTIFICIAL LINES. The ingenious contrivances for representing logarithmic sines and tangents, so useful in navigation, on a scale.

ARTILLERY was formerly synonymous with archery, but now comprehends every description of ordnance, guns, mortars, fire-arms, and all their appurtenances. The term is also applied to the noble corps destined to that service: as also to the theory and practice of the[56] science of projectiles: it was moreover given to all kinds of missile weapons, and the translators of the Bible make Jonathan give his "artillery unto his lad."

ARTILLERY, ROYAL MARINE. Formerly a select branch of the R. Marines, specially instructed in gunnery and the care of artillery stores; assigned in due proportion to all ships of war. It is now separate from the other branch (to whose original title the denomination of Light Infantry has been added), and rests on its own official basis; its relation to ships of war, however, remaining the same as before, although while on shore the Royal Marine forces are regulated by an annual act of parliament. (See Royal Marine Artillery.)

ARTIST. A name formerly applied to those mariners who were also expert navigators.

ARTIZAN. A mechanic or operative workman. (See Artificer.)

ARX. A fort or castle for the defence of a place.

ASCENDANT. The part of the ecliptic above the horizon.

ASCENDING NODE. See Nodes.

ASCENDING SIGNS. Those in which the sun appears to ascend towards the north pole, or in which his motion in declination is towards the north.

ASCENSION. The act of mounting or rising upwards. (See Right Ascension.)

ASCENSIONAL DIFFERENCE. The equinoctial arc intercepted between the right and oblique ascensions (which see).

ASCENSION OBLIQUE. See Oblique Ascension.

ASCENSION RIGHT. See Right Ascension.

ASCII. The inhabitants of the torrid zone, who twice a year, being under a vertical sun, have no shadow.

AS DEAF AS THE MAIN-MAST. Said of one who does not readily catch an order given. Thus at sea the main-mast is synonymous with the door-post on shore.

ASHES. See Windward.

ASHLAR. Blocks of stone masonry fronting docks, piers, and other erections; this term is applied to common or freestone as they come of various lengths, breadths, and thicknesses from the quarry.

ASHORE. Aground, on land.—To go ashore, to disembark from a boat. Opposed to aboard.

ASH-PIT. A receptacle for ashes before the fire-bars in a steamer, or under them in most fire-places.

ASIENTO [Sp.] A sitting, contract, or convention; such as that between Spain and other powers in relation to the supply of stores for South America.[57]

ASK, or Asker. A name of the water-newt.

ASKEW. Awry, crooked, oblique.

ASLANT. Formed or placed in an oblique line, as with dagger-knees, &c.—To sail aslant, turning to windward.

ASLEEP. The sail filled with wind just enough for swelling or bellying out,—as contrasted with its flapping.

ASPECT. The looming of the land from sea-ward.

ASPER. A minute Turkish coin in accounts, of which three go to a para.

ASPIC. An ancient 12-pounder piece of ordnance, about 11 feet long.

ASPIRANT DE MARINE. Midshipman in the French navy.

ASPORTATION. The carrying of a vessel or goods illegally.

ASSAIL, To. To attack, leap upon, board, &c.

ASSAULT. A hostile attack. The effort to storm a place, and gain possession of a post by main force.

ASSEGAI. The spear used by the Kaffirs in South Africa; it is frequently feather-bent to revolve in its flight.

ASSEGUAY. The knife-dagger used in the Levant.

ASSEMBLY. That long roll beat of the drum by which soldiers, or armed parties, are ordered to repair to their stations. It is sometimes called the fall-in.

ASSES'-BRIDGE. The well-known name of prop. 5, b. i. of Euclid, the difficulty of which makes many give in.

ASSIEGE, To. To besiege, to invest or beset with an armed force.

ASSIGNABLE. Any finite geometrical ratio, or magnitude that can be marked out or denoted.

ASSILAG. The name given in the Hebrides to a small sea-bird with a black bill. The stormy petrel.

ASSISTANCE. Aid or help: strongly enjoined to be given whenever a signal is made requiring it.

ASSISTANT-SURGEON. The designation given some years ago to those formerly called "surgeon's mates," and considered a boon by the corps.

ASSORTMENT. The arrangement of goods, tools, &c., in a series.

ASSURANCE. (See Marine Insurance.) Conveyance or deed: in which light Shakspeare makes Tranio say that his father will "pass assurance."

ASSURGENT. A heraldic term for a man or beast rising out of the sea.

ASSUROR. He who makes out the policy of assurance for a ship: he is not answerable for the neglect of the master or seamen.

A-STARBOARD. The opposite to a-port.

A-STAY. Said of the anchor when, in heaving in, the cable forms[58] such an angle with the surface as to appear in a line with the stays of the ship.—A long stay apeek is when the cable forms an acute angle with the water's surface, or coincides with the main-stay—short stay when it coincides with the fore-stay.

ASTELLABRE. The same as astrolabe.

ASTERIA. See Sea-star.

ASTERISM. Synonymous with constellation, a group of stars.

ASTERN. Any distance behind a vessel; in the after-part of the ship; in the direction of the stern, and therefore the opposite of ahead.—To drop astern, is to be left behind,—when abaft a right angle to the keel at the main-mast, she drops astern.

ASTEROIDS. The name by which the minor planets between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars were proposed to be distinguished by Sir W. Herschel. They are very small bodies, which have all been discovered since the commencement of the present century; yet their present number is over eighty.

ASTRAGAL. A moulding formerly round a cannon, at a little distance from its breech, the cascabel, and another near the muzzle. It is a half round on a flat moulding.

ASTRAL. Sidereal, relating to the stars.

ASTROLABE. An armillary sphere.—Sea-astrolabe, a useful graduated brass ring, with a movable index, for taking the altitude of stars and planets: it derived its name from the armillary sphere of Hipparchus, at Alexandria.

ASTROMETRY. The numerical expression of the apparent magnitudes of the so-called fixed stars.

ASTRONOMICAL CLOCK. A capital bit of horology, the pendulum of which is usually compensated to sidereal time, for astronomical purposes. (See Sidereal Time.)

ASTRONOMICAL HOURS. Those which are reckoned from noon or midnight of one natural day, to noon or midnight of another.

ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS. There have been occasional slight records of celestial phenomena from the remotest times, but the most useful ones are those collected and preserved by Ptolemy. Since 1672, science has been enriched with a continued series of astronomical observations of accuracy and value never dreamed of by the ancients.

ASTRONOMICAL PLACE OF A STAR OR PLANET. Its longitude or place in the ecliptic, reckoned from the first point of Aries, according to the natural order of the signs.

ASTRONOMICAL TABLES. Tables for facilitating the calculation of the apparent places of the sun, moon, and planets.

ASTRONOMICALS. The sexagesimal fractions.

ASTRONOMY. The splendid department of the mixed sciences which[59] teaches the laws and phenomena of the universal system. It is practical when it treats of the magnitudes, periods, and distances of the heavenly bodies; and physical when it investigates the causes. In the first division the more useful adaptation nautical is included (which see).

ASTROSCOPIA. Skill in examining the nature and properties of stars with a telescope.

ASTRUM, or Astron. Sirius, or the Dog-star. Sometimes applied to a cluster of stars.

ASWIM. Afloat, borne on the waters.

ASYLUM. A sanctuary or refuge; a name given to a benevolent institution at Greenwich, for 800 boys and 200 girls, orphans of seamen and marines. The Royal Military Asylum is also an excellent establishment of a similar nature at Chelsea, besides numerous others.

ASYMMETRY. A mathematical disproportion. The relation of two quantities which have no measure in common.

ASYMPTOTES. Lines which continually approximate each other, but can never meet.

ATABAL. A Moorish kettle-drum.

ATAGHAN. See Yataghan.

AT ANCHOR. The situation of a vessel riding in a road or port by her anchor.

ATAR. A perfume of commerce, well known as atar-of-roses; atar being the Arabic word for fragrance, corrupted into otto.

A'TAUNTO, or All-a-taunt-o. Every mast an-end and fully rigged.

ATEGAR. The old English hand-dart, named from the Saxon aeton, to fling, and gar, a weapon.

ATHERINE. A silvery fish used in the manufacture of artificial pearls; it is 4 or 5 inches long, inhabits various seas, but is taken in great numbers in the Mediterranean. It is also called argentine.

ATHILLEDA. The rule and sights of an astrolabe.

ATHWART. The transverse direction; anything extending or across the line of a ship's course.—Athwart hawse, a vessel, boat, or floating lumber accidentally drifted across the stem of a ship, the transverse position of the drift being understood.—Athwart the fore-foot, just before the stem; ships fire a shot in this direction to arrest a stranger, and make her bring-to.—Athwart ships, in the direction of the beam; from side to side: in opposition to fore-and-aft.

ATHWART THE TIDE. See Across the Tide.

ATLANTIC. The sea which separates Europe and Africa from the Americas, so named from the elevated range called the Atlas Mountains in Morocco.

ATLANTIDES. The daughters of Atlas; a name of the Pleiades.[60]

ATLAS. A large book of maps or charts; so called from the character of that name in ancient mythology, son of Uranus, and represented as bearing the world on his back. Also the Indian satin of commerce.

ATMOSPHERE. The ambient air, or thin elastic fluid which surrounds the globe, and gradually diminishing in gravity rises to an unknown height, yet by gravitation partakes of all its motions.

ATMOSPHERIC or Single-action Steam-engine. A condensing machine, in which the downward stroke of the piston is performed by the pressure of the atmosphere acting against a vacuum.

ATMOSPHERICAL TIDES. The motions generated by the joint influence of the sun and moon; and by the rotatory and orbital course of the earth,—as developed in trade-winds, equinoctial gales, &c.

ATOLLS. An Indian name for those singular coral formations known as lagoon-islands, such as the Maldive cluster, those in the Pacific, and in other parts within the tropics, where the apparently insignificant reef-building zoophytes reside.

ATRIE. To bring the ship to in a gale.

A-TRIP. The anchor is a-trip, or a-weigh, when the purchase has just made it break ground, or raised it clear. Sails are a-trip when they are hoisted from the cap, sheeted home, and ready for trimming. Yards are a-trip when swayed up, ready to have the stops cut for crossing: so an upper-mast is said to be a-trip, when the fid is loosened preparatory to lowering it.

ATTACHED. Belongs to; in military parlance an officer or soldier is attached to any regiment or company with which he is ordered to do duty.

ATTACK. A general assault or onset upon an enemy. Also the arrangement for investment or battle. (See False Attack.)

ATTEMPT, To. To endeavour to carry a vessel or place by surprise; to venture at some risk, as in trying a new channel, &c.

ATTENDANT MASTER. A dockyard official. (See Master-attendant.)