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.)[216]

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 manœuvre 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[217] 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 revêtement.

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'ŒIL. 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;[218] 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.[219]

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, Cypræa 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[220] 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.