MAW, or Sea-maw. The common gull, Larus canus.

MAY. See Vendaval.

MAYHEM, or Mahim. The law-term for maim.[475]

MAZE. In the herring trade, 500 fishes.

MAZOLET. An Indian bark boat, caulked with moss.

MEAKER. A west-country term for a minnow.

MEAKING IRON. The tool used by caulkers to run old oakum out of the seams before inserting new.

MEALED. Mixed or compounded.—Mealed powder, gunpowder pulverized by treating with spirits of wine.

MEALES, or Miols. Immense sand-banks thrown up by the sea on the coasts of Norfolk, Lancashire, &c.

MEAN. As a general term implies the medium, but a mean of bad observations can never make a good one.

MEAN ANOMALY. See Anomaly.

MEAN DISTANCE. The average distance of a planet from the sun; it is equal to half the longer axis of the ellipse, and hence is frequently termed the semi-axis major.

MEAN EQUINOX. The position of the equinox independent of the effects of nutation.

MEAN MOTION. The rate at which a body moving in an elliptic orbit would proceed at an equal velocity throughout.

MEAN NOON. The noon of a mean day supposing the year to be divided into days of equal length. It differs from apparent noon by the amount of the equation of time for that date.

MEAN OBLIQUITY. The obliquity of the ecliptic, unaffected with nutation.

MEAN PLACE OF A STAR. Its position at a given time, independent of aberration and nutation.

MEAN SUN. See Time.

MEAN TIME. See Time.

MEASURE. A comprehensive term including length, surface, time, weight, solidity, capacity, and force of gravity.

MEASURING LINE. The old term for the first meridian reckoned off from a ship's longitude. Also, the five-fathom line used by the boatswain.

MECHANICS. The science which explains the properties of moving bodies, and of the machines from which they receive their impetus. The mechanical powers consist of six primary instruments, the lever, the balance, the pulley, the wheel, the screw, and the wedge: to which is sometimes added the inclined plane; and of some, or all of these, every compound machine consists.

MECK. A notched staff in a whale-boat on which the harpoon rests.

MEDICAL BOARD. A number of medical officers convened to examine sick and wounded officers and men, for invaliding or discharge.

MEDICINE-CHEST. A large chest containing the medical necessaries that may be required for 100 men during the cruize. Several chests are thus fitted and supplied in proportion to the ship's crew, ready for detached service.[476]

MEDICINES. Merchantmen are legally bound to carry medicines in proportion to their crew, with instructions for their use if there be no surgeon on board.

MEDICO. A familiar appellation for the ship's surgeon.

MEDITERRANEAN OR INLAND SEA. A term applied to a sea surrounded on all sides, except its immediate entrance, by land; as the Mediterranean, so styled par excellence; also, the Baltic, the Red Sea, &c.

MEDITERRANEAN PASS. A document formerly granted by the Lords of the Admiralty to registered vessels, which was valuable when the Barbary powers were unchecked. (See Pass.)

MEDIUM. See Resisting Medium.

MEERMAID. A name given by our northern fishermen to the Lophius piscatorius, or frog-fish, without reference to the mermaid (which see).

MEER-SWINE. The porpoise [from the German meerschwein].

MEET HER! The order to adjust the helm, so as to check any further movement of the ship's head in a given direction.

MEGANESE [Gr.] A large portion of land, inferior in extent to a continent, but which, though insular, is too large to be termed an island, as New Holland.

MEMORIAL. An official petition on account of services performed.

MEN. The ship's company in general.

MEND SAILS, To. To loose and skin them afresh on the yards.

MEND THE SERVICE. Put on more service to the cable, or any part of the rigging chafed.

MERCANTILE MARINE. See Marine.

MERCANTILE MARINE FUND. A public fund accumulated by fees payable to the Board of Trade on account of the merchant shipping.

MERCATOR'S CHART or Projection. Introduced by Gerard Mercator, circa 1556: it is a projection of the surface of the earth in the plane, with all the meridians made parallel with each other, consequently the degrees of longitude all equal, the degrees of latitude increasing in a corresponding ratio towards the poles. This is the chart most commonly used in navigation; and its use appears to have obtained quickly, for in 1576, among the items of Martin Frobisher's outfit, we find, "For a greate Mappe Universall of Mercator, in prente, £1, 6s. 8d."

MERCATOR'S SAILING. Performed loxodromically, by means of Mercator's charts.

MERCHANTMAN. A trading vessel employed in importing and exporting goods to and from any quarter of the globe.

MERCHANT SERVICE. The mercantile marine.

MERCHANT-VENTURERS. A company of merchants who traded with Russia, Turkey, and other distant parts. In the Affectionate Shepheard, 1594, we find—

[477]MERCURIAL GAUGE. A curved tube partly filled with mercury, to show the pressure of steam in an engine.

MERCURY. One of the ancient inferior planets, and the nearest to the sun, as far as we yet know. (See Transit of.) Also, a name for quicksilver; the fluid metal so useful in the construction of the marine barometer, thermometer, and artificial horizon.

MERE. An Anglo-Saxon word still in use, sometimes meaning a lake, and generally the sea itself.

MERIDIAN, of the Earth. Is an imaginary great circle passing through the zenith and the poles, and cutting the equator at right angles. When the sun is on the meridian of any place, it is mid-day there, and at all places situated under the same meridian. —First meridian is that from which the longitude is reckoned. Magnetic meridian is not a great circle but a wavy line uniting those poles.

In common acceptation, a meridian is any line supposed to be drawn from the north to the south pole; therefore a place being under the same meridian as another place, is either due north or south of it. —Plane of the meridian is the plane of this great circle, and its intersection with the sensible horizon is called the meridian line. —The meridian transit of a heavenly body is the act of passing over the said plane, when it is either due north or south of the spectator. —Ante meridiem, or A. M.

, before noon. —Post meridiem, or P. M. , after noon.

MERIDIAN ERROR. The deviation of a transit-instrument from the plane of the meridian at the horizon; it is also termed the azimuthal error.

MERLON. That part of the parapet of a battery between two adjacent embrasures, 15 or 20 feet long in general.

MERMAID. A fabulous sea-creature of which the upper half was said to resemble a woman, the lower half a fish.

MERMAID'S GLOVE. The name of a peculiar sponge, Spongia palmata, abundant at Bermuda.

MERMAID'S PURSE. The oblong horny cases with long filiform appendages developed from each of the four corners, found on the sea-shore, being the outer covering of the eggs of several species of rays and sharks. Also, the hollow root of the sea-weed Fucus polyschides.

MERRY DANCERS. The glancings and coruscations of the aurora borealis, or northern lights.

MERRY MEN OF MAY. Dangerous currents formed by the ebb-tides.

MESON. A very old form of spelling mizen.

MESS. Any company of the officers or crew of a ship, who eat, drink, and associate together. (See Number.) Also, the state of a ship in a sudden squall, when everything is let go and flying, and nothing hauled in.

MESS-DECK. The place where a ship's crew mess.

MESSENGER. A large cable-laid rope, used to unmoor or heave up the anchor of a ship, by the aid of the capstan. This is done by binding a part of the messenger to the cable by which the ship rides, in several places, with pliant nippers, and by winding another part of it about the[478] capstan. The messenger has an eye-splice at each end, through which several turns of a strong lashing are passed, forming an endless rope. So that by putting on fresh nippers forward, and taking them off as they are hove aft, the capstan may be kept constantly going, and the cable is walked in without stopping.

(See Viol. ) A superior plan is now adopted, in which the messenger, consisting of a pitch chain which has a double and single link alternately, works in iron spurs fastened above the lower rim of the capstan. This avoids the trouble of shifting or fleeting the messenger while heaving in. Again, the cable itself is commonly brought to the capstan. —Light forward the messenger!

is the order to pull the slack of it towards the hawse holes, on the slack or opposite side, so as to be ready to fasten upon the cable which is being hove in, as it comes off the manger-roller at the bows.

MESSENGERS. Boys appointed to carry orders from the quarter-deck. In some ships they wore winged caps of the Mercury type.

MESS-KID. A wooden tub for holding cooked victuals or cocoa.

MESSMATE. A companion of the same mess-table, hence comrades in many ways; whence the saw: "Messmate before a shipmate, shipmate before a stranger, stranger before a dog."

MESS-TRAPS. The kids, crockery, bowls, spoons, and other articles of mess service.

META-CENTRE. That point in a ship where a vertical line drawn from the centre of cavity cuts a line perpendicular to the keel, passing through the centre of gravity. As this depends upon the situation of the centre of cavity, the meta-centre is often called the shifting-centre. Safety requires this point to be above the centre of gravity.

METAL. A word comprehending the great guns, or ordnance generally, of a ship or battery.

METEINGS. The measurement and estimate of timber.

METEOR. See Compasant, Water-spout, &c.

METEORITES. Meteoric stones which fall from the atmosphere, composed of earthy and metallic substances, in which iron, nickel, &c., enter largely.

METEOROLOGIC TELEGRAPHY. The sending of telegrams to various stations at home and abroad, with the object of improving the science of meteorology, and issuing storm warnings, &c.

METONIC CYCLE. A cycle of 19 years, which contains 235 lunations, and results in a correspondence of the solar and lunar years. The discovery of this astronomical period may be safely assigned to Meton in 432 B.C.

MEW [Anglo-Saxon mæw]. A name for the sea-gull.

MIASMA. An impure effluvium in the air—proceeding from marshes or moist ground acted upon by solar heat—by which malaria fevers, particularly intermittents, are produced.

MICROMETER. An instrument used to measure small angles, diameters, and distances of heavenly bodies.[479]

MID. The intermediate or middle part of anything. Also, per contractionem, a midshipman.

MID-CHANNEL. Implies half way across any river, channel, &c.

MIDDLE BAND. One of the bands of a sail, to give additional strength.

MIDDLE-LATITUDE SAILING. A method of converting departure in difference of longitude, and vice versâ, by using the middle latitude instead of the meridional parts, as in Mercator's sailing.

MIDDLE-TIMBER. That timber in the stern which is placed amidships.

MIDDLE-TOPSAIL. A deep-roached sail, set in some schooners and sloops on the heel of their top-masts between the top and the cap. A modification of this, under the name of a lower top-sail, is now very common in double-topsail-yarded ships. (Cunningham's top-sails.)

MIDDLE-WALES. The three or four thick strakes worked along each side between the lower and middle-deck-ports in three-deckers.

MIDDLE-WATCH. The portion of the crew on deck-duty from midnight to 4 A.M.

MIDDLE-WATCHER. The slight meal snatched by officers of the middle-watch about five bells (or 2·30 A.M.)

MIDDLING A SAIL. Arranging it for bending to the yard.

MIDDY. An abbreviation for the younger midshipmen, synonymous with mid.

MIDRIB. A narrow canal or culvert.