SCOTCHMAN. A piece of stiff hide, or batten of wood, placed over the backstays fore-swifter of the shrouds, &c., so as to secure the standing rigging from being chafed. Perhaps so called from the scotch or notch where the seizing is passed.

SCOTCH MIST. Mizzle, or small soaking rain.

SCOTCH PRIZE. A mistake; worse than no prize, or one liable to hamper the captors with heavy law expenses.

SCOTIA. Carved mouldings and grooves.

SCOUR A BEACH, To. To pour a quick flanking fire along it, in order to dislodge an enemy.

SCOURER, or Scouring-stick. Spring-searcher. An implement to clean the interior of musket barrels.

SCOURGE. A name of the boatswain's cat.

SCOUR THE SEAS, To. To infest the ocean as a pirate.[597]

SCOUSE. A dish made of pounded biscuit and salt beef cut into small pieces, boiled up with seasoning. (See Lobscouse.)

SCOUTS. Small vessels of war for especial service. (See Skouts.) Also, intelligent men sent in advance to discover the enemy, and give an account of his force.

SCOW. A large flat-bottomed boat, used either as a lighter, or for ferrying.

SCOW-BANKER. A manager of a scow. Also, a contemptuous term for a lubberly fellow.

SCOWRING. The cleansing and clearing a harbour by back-water, or otherwise. Also an old term for tropical flux or dysentery.

SCRABBLE. A badly written log. This term is used by the translators of the Bible at David's feigned madness, when he "scrabbled on the doors of the gate."

SCRABER. The puffinet, Colymbus grille. (See Greenland Dove.)

SCRAPER [from the Anglo-Saxon screope]. A small triangular iron instrument, having two or three sharp edges. It is used to scrape the ship's side or decks after caulking, or to clean the top-masts, &c. This is usually followed by a varnish of turpentine, or a mixture of tar and oil, to protect the wood from the weather. Also, metaphorically, a cocked hat, whether shipped fore-and-aft or worn athwart-ships.

SCRATCH-RACE. A boat-race where the crews are drawn by lot.

SCRAWL. The young of the dog-crab, or a poor sort of crab itself.

SCREEN-BERTH. Pieces of canvas temporarily hung round a berth, for warmth and privacy. (See Berth.)

SCREW-DOCK. See Gridiron.

SCREW-GAMMONING for the Bowsprit. A chain or plate fastened by a screw, to secure a vessel's bowsprit to the stem-head, allowing for the tricing up of the bowsprit when required.

SCREW-PROPELLER. A valuable substitute for the cumbersome paddle-wheels as a motive-power for steam-vessels: the Archimedean screw plying under water, and hidden by the counter, communicates motion in the direction of its axis to a vessel, by working against the resisting medium of water. (See Twin-screw.)

SCREWS. Powerful machines for lifting large bodies. (See Bed, Barrel, and Jack Screws.)

SCREW-WELL. A hollow trunk over the screw of a steamer, for allowing the propeller to be disconnected and lifted when required.

SCRIMP. Scant. A word used in the north; as, a scrimp wind, a very light breeze.

SCRIVANO. A clerk or writer; a name adopted in our early ships from the Portuguese or Spanish.

SCROLL-HEAD. A slightly curved piece of timber bolted to the knees of the head, in place of a figure: finished off by a volute turning outwards, contrary to the fiddle-head.

SCROVIES. An old name given to the worthless men picked up by crimps, and sent on board as A.B.'s.[598]

SCRUFF. The matter adhering to the bottoms of foul vessels.

SCUD. The low misty cloud. It appears to fly faster than others because it is very near the earth's surface. When scud is abundant, showers may be expected. —To scud.

To run before a gale under canvas enough to keep the vessel ahead of the sea: as, for instance, a close-reefed main top-sail and fore-sail; without canvas she is said to scud under bare poles, and is very likely to be pooped. When a vessel makes a sudden and precipitate flight, she is said to scud away. —Scud like a 'Mudian. Be off in a hurry.

SCUDO. A coin of Italy, varying in value in the different provinces.

SCUFFLE. A confused and disorderly contention—

SCULL. A short oar of such length that a pair of them, one on each side, are conveniently managed by a single rower sitting in the middle of the boat. Also, a light metal-helmet worn in our early fleet. —To scull. To row a boat with a pair of sculls.

Also, to propel a boat by a particular method of managing a single oar over the boat's stern, and reversing the blade each time. It is in fact the half-stroke of the screw rapidly reversed, and closely resembles the propelling power of the horizontal tail of the whale.

SCULPTURES. The carved decorations of the head, stern, and quarter of an old ship-of-war. Also, the copper plates which "adorned" the former books of voyages and travels.

SCUM of the Sea. The refuse seen on the line of tidal change; the drift sent off by the ebbing tide. Or (in the neighbourhood of the rains), the fresh water running on the surface of the salt and carrying with it a line of foam bearing numerous sickly gelatinous marine animals, and physaliæ, commonly called Portuguese men-of-war, affected by the fresh water and other small things often met with on the surface sea.

SCUM-O'-THE-SKY. Thin atmospheric vapours.

SCUPPER-HOSE. A canvas leathern pipe or tube nailed round the outside of the scuppers of the lower decks, which prevents the water from discolouring the ship's sides.

SCUPPER-LEATHER. A flap-valve nailed over a scupper-hole, serving to keep water from getting in, yet letting it out.

SCUPPER-NAILS. Short nails with very broad flat heads, used to nail the flaps of the scuppers, so as to retain the hose under them: they are also used for battening tarpaulins and other general purposes.

SCUPPER-PLUGS. Are used to close the scuppers in-board.

SCUPPERS. Round apertures cut through the water ways and sides of a ship at proper distances, and lined with metal, in order to carry the water off the deck into the sea.

SCUPPER-SHOOTS. Metal or wooden tubes which carry the water from the decks of frigates to the sea-level.[599]

SCURRY. Perhaps from the Anglo-Saxon scur, a heavy shower, a sudden squall. It now means a hurried movement; it is more especially applied to seals or penguins taking to the water in fright.

SCUTTLE. A small hole or port cut either in the deck or side of a ship, generally for ventilation. That in the deck is a small hatchway.

SCUTTLE, To. To cut or bore holes through part of a ship when she is stranded or over-set, and continues to float, in order to save any part of her contents. Also, a trick too often practised by boring holes below water, to sink a ship, where fictitious cargo is embarked and the vessel insured beyond her value. (See Barratry.)

SCUTTLE OR SCUTTLED BUTT. A cask having a square piece sawn out of its bilge and lashed in a convenient place to hold water for present use.

SCUTTLE-HATCH. A lid or hatch for covering and closing the scuttles when necessary.

SEA. Strictly speaking, sea is the next large division of water after ocean, but in its special sense signifies only any large portion of the great mass of waters almost surrounded by land, as the Black, the White, the Baltic, the China, and the Mediterranean seas, and in a general sense in contradistinction to land. By sailors the word is also variously applied. Thus they say—"We shipped a heavy sea. " "There is a great sea on in the offing.

" "The sea sets to the southward," &c. Hence a ship is said to head the sea when her course is opposed to the direction of the waves. —A long sea implies a uniform motion of long waves, the result of a steady continuance of the wind from nearly the same quarter. —A short sea is a confused motion of the waves when they run irregularly so as frequently to break over a vessel, caused by sudden changes of wind. The law claims for the crown wherever the sea flows to, and there the admiralty has jurisdiction; accordingly, no act can be done, no bridge can span a river so circumstanced without the sanction of the admiralty.

It claims the fore-shore unless specially granted by charter otherwise, and the court of vice-admiralty has jurisdiction as to flotsam and jetsam on the fore-shore. But all crimes are subject to the laws, and are tried by the ordinary courts as within the body of a county, comprehended by the chord between two headlands where the distance does not exceed three miles from the shore. Beyond that limit is "the sea, where high court of admiralty has jurisdiction, but where civil process cannot follow.

SEA-ADDER. The west-country term for the pipe-fish Syngnathus. The name is also given to the nest-making stickleback.

SEA-ANCHOR. That which lies towards the offing when a ship is moored.

SEA-ATTORNEY. The ordinary brown and rapacious shark.

SEA-BANK. A work so important that our statutes make it felony, without benefit of clergy, maliciously to cut down any sea-bank whereby lands may be overflowed.

SEA-BEANS. Pods of the acacia tribe shed into the rivers about the[600] Gulf of Mexico, and borne by the stream to the coasts of Great Britain, and even further north.

SEA-BEAR. A name applied to several species of large seals of the genus Otaria, found both in the northern and southern hemispheres. They differ from the true seals, especially in the mode in which they use their hind limbs in walking on land.

SEA-BOARD. The line along which the land and water meet, indicating the limit common to both.

SEA-BOAT. A good sea-boat implies any vessel adapted to bear the sea firmly and lively without labouring heavily or straining her masts or rigging. The contrary is called a bad sea-boat.

SEA-BORNE. Arrived from a voyage: said of freighted ships also afloat.

SEA-BOTTLE. The pod or vesicle of some species of sea-wrack or Fucus gigantea of Cape Horn and the Straits of Magellan.

SEA-BREEZE. A wind from the sea towards the land. In tropical climates (and sometimes during summer in the temperate zone) as the day advances the land becomes extremely heated by the sun, which causes an ascending current of air, and a wind from the sea rushes in to restore equilibrium. Above the sea-breeze is a counter current, which was clearly shown in Madras, where an æronaut waited until the sea-breeze had set in to make his ascent, expecting to be blown inland, but after rising to a certain height found himself going out to sea, and in his haste to descend he disordered the machinery, and could not close the valve which allowed the gas to escape, so fell into the sea about three miles from the land, but clung to his balloon and was saved. Also, a cool sea drink.

SEA-BRIEF. A specification of the nature and quantity of the cargo of a ship, the place whence it comes, and its destination. (See Passport.)

SEA-CALF. A seal, Phoca vitulina.

SEA-CAP. The white drift or breaks of a wave. White horses of trades.

SEA-CARDS. The old name for charts.

SEA-CAT. A name of the wolf-fish, Anarrhicas lupus.

SEA-CATGUT. The Fucus filum, or sea-thread.

SEA-COAST, or Sea-bord. The shore of any country, or that part which is washed by the sea.

SEA COCOA-NUT, or Double Cocoa-nut. The fruit of the Lodoicea seychellarum, a handsome palm growing in the Seychelles Islands. It was once supposed to be produced by a sea-weed, because so often found floating on the sea around.

SEA-COULTER. The puffin or coulter-neb, Fratercula arctica.

SEA-COW. One of the names given to the manatee (which see).

SEA-CRAFTS. In ship-building, a term for the scarphed strakes otherwise called clamps. For boats, see Thwart-clamps.

SEA-CROW. A name on our southern coast for the cormorant.

SEA-CUCKOO. The Trigla cuculus, or red gurnard, so called from the unmusical grunt which it emits.[601]