INQUIRY, Court of, is assembled by order of a commanding officer to inquire into matters of an intricate nature, for his information; but has no power of adjudication whatever: but too like the Star Chamber.

INSHORE. The opposite of offing.—Inshore tack. Standing in from sea-ward when working to windward on a coast.

INSHORED. Come to shore.

INSIDE MUSTER-PAPER. A description of paper supplied from the dockyards, ruled and headed, for making ships' books.

INSPECTION. The mode of working up the dead-reckoning by computed nautical tables. Also, a general examination or survey of all parts of a sea or land force by an officer of competent authority.

INSTALMENT. A partial payment.

INSTANCE COURT. A department of the admiralty court, governed by the civil law, the laws of Oleron, and the customs of the admiralty, modified by statute law.

INSTITUTION. An establishment founded partly with a view to instruction; as the Royal United Service Institution in London.

INSTRUCTIONS. See Printed Instructions.

INSTRUMENT. A term of extensive application among tools and weapons; but it is here introduced as an official conveyance of some right, or the record of some fact.[403]

INSUFFICIENCY of a Merchantman's Crew. This bars the owner's claim on the sea-worthy warrant. (See Incompetency.)

INSURANCE. See Marine Insurance.

INSURED. The party who obtains the policy and pays the premium.

INSURER. The party taking the risk of a policy. (See Underwriters.)

INTACT. Unhurt; undamaged.

INTENSITY OF LIGHT. The degree of brightness of a planet or comet, expressed as a number varying with the distance of the body from the sun and earth.

INTERCALARY. Any period of time interpolated in the calendar for the purpose of accommodating the mode of reckoning with the course of the sun.

INTEREST POLICY. See Policy.

INTERLOPER. A smuggling or forced trade vessel. As a nautical phrase it was generally applied to the "letters of marque" on the coasts of South America, or a cruiser off her admiral's limits (poaching).

INTERMEDIATE SHAFT. In a steamer, is the iron crank common to both engines.

INTERNAL CONTACT. This, in a transit of Mercury or Venus across the solar disc, occurs when the planet is just within the sun's margin.

INTERNAL PLANKING. This is termed ceiling of the ship.

INTERNAL SAFETY-VALVE. A valve opening from the outside of a steamer's boiler, in order to allow air to enter the boiler when the pressure becomes too weak within.

INTERROGATORIES. The practice in the prize court is, on the breaking out of a war, to prepare standing commissions for the examination of witnesses, to which certain interrogatories are annexed; to these the examination is confined. Private interrogatories are inadmissible as evidence.

INTERSECTION. The point in which one line crosses another.

INTERTROPICAL. The space included between the tropics on each side of the equator, making a zone of nearly 47°.

INTERVAL. In military affairs, the lateral space between works or bodies of troops, as distinguished from distance, which is the depth or measurement in a direction from front to rear.

IN THE WIND. The state of a vessel when thrown with her head into the wind, but not quite all in the wind (see All). It is figuratively used for being nearly intoxicated.

INTRENCHMENT. Any work made to fortify a post against an enemy, but usually implying a ditch or trench, with a parapet.

INUNDATIONS. In ancient Egypt officers estimated the case of sufferers from the inundations of the Nile. The changes of property in Bengal, by alluvion, are equally attended to. Inundation is also a method of impeding the approach of an enemy, by damming up the course of a brook or river, so as to intercept the water, and set the neighbourhood afloat. In Egypt the plan was diametrically opposite; for by flooding Lake Mareotis,[404] our gunboats were enabled greatly to annoy the French garrison at Alexandria.

INVALID. A maimed or sick soldier or sailor.—To invalid is to cause to retire from active service from inability.

INVER. A Gaelic name, still retained in Scotland, for the month of a river.

INVESTMENT. The first process of a siege, in taking measures to seize all the avenues, blocking up the garrison, and preventing relief getting into the place before the arrival of the main army with the siege-train.

INVINCIBLE. A name boastfully applied both to naval and military forces, which have nevertheless been utterly vanquished.

INVOICE. An account from a merchant to his factor, containing the particulars and prices of each parcel of goods in the cargo, with the amount of the freight, duties, and other charges thereon.

INWARD. The opposite of outward (which see).

INWARD CHARGES. Pilotage and other expenses incurred in entering any port.

IODINE. A substance chiefly obtained from kelp or sea-weed, extensively employed in medicine and the arts. Its vapour has a beautiful violet colour.

IRIS EARS. A name applied to the shells of the Haliotis—a univalve mollusc found clinging like limpets to rocks; very abundant in Guernsey.

IRISH HORSE. Old salt beef: hence the sailor's address to his salt beef—

IRISH PENNANTS. Rope-yarns hanging about on the rigging. Loose reef-points or gaskets flying about, or fag-ends of ropes.

IRON-BOUND. A coast where the shores are composed of rocks which mostly rise perpendicularly from the sea, and have no anchorage near to them, therefore dangerous for vessels to borrow upon.

IRON-BOUND BLOCKS. Those which are fitted with iron strops.

IRON-CLAD, CASED, COATED, OR PLATED VESSEL. One covered entirely, or in special parts, with iron plates intended to resist ordinary missiles. Where parts only are so protected, of course it may be done more effectually.

IRON GARTERS. A cant word for bilboes, or fetters.

IRON-HORSE. The iron rail of the head; the horse of the fore-sheet or boom-sheet traveller.

IRON-PLATED SHIPS. See Armour-clad.

IRONS. A ship is said to be in irons when, by mismanagement, she is permitted to come up in the wind and lose her way; so that, having no steerage, she must either be boxed off on the former tack, or fall off on the other; for she will not cast one way or the other, without[405] bracing in the yards. Also, bilboes (which see). Also, the tools used by the caulkers for driving oakum into the seams. (See also Boom-irons.)

IRON-SICK. The condition of vessels when the iron work becomes loose in the timbers from corrosion by gallic acid, and the speeks or sheathing nails are eaten away by rust.

IRON-SIDES. Formerly a sobriquet for favourite veteran men-of-war, but latterly applied to iron and iron-clad ships.

IRON WEDGES. Tapered iron wedges on the well-known mechanical principle, for splitting out blocks and for other similar purposes.

IRON-WORK. A general name for all pieces of iron, of whatever figure or size, which are used in the construction and equipment of ships.

IRREGULAR BASTION. One whose opposite faces or flanks do not correspond; this, as well as the constant irregularity of most real fortification, is generally the result of the local features of the neighbourhood.

ISLAND. May be simply described as a tract of land entirely surrounded with water; but the whole continuous land of the Old World forms one island, and the New World another; while canals across the isthmuses of Suez and Panama would make each into two. The term properly only applies to smaller portions of land; and Australia, Madagascar, Borneo, and Britain are among the larger examples. Their materials and form are equally various, and so is their origin; some having evidently been upheaved by volcanic eruption, others are the result of accretion, and still more revealing by their strata that they were formerly attached to a neighbouring land. The sudden emergence of Sabrina, in the Atlantic, has occasioned wonder in our own day.

So has that of Graham's Island, near the south coast of Sicily; and the Archipelago is daily at work.

ISLAND HARBOUR. That which is protected from the violence of the sea by one or more islands or islets screening its mouth.

ISLAND OF ICE. A name given to a great quantity of ice collected into one solid mass and floating upon the sea; they are often met with on the coasts of Spitzbergen, to the great danger of the shipping employed in the Greenland fishery.

ISLE. A colloquial abbreviation of island.

ISLE OF WIGHT PARSON. A cormorant.

ISLET, or Islot. Smaller than an island, yet larger than a key; an insular spot about a couple of miles in circuit.

ISOSCELES. A triangle with only two of its sides equal.

ISSUE. The act of dispensing slops, tobacco, beds, &c., to the ship's company; a distribution.

ISSUE-BOOK. That which contains the record of issues to the crew, and the charges made against them.

ISTHMUS. A narrow neck of land which joins a peninsula to its continent, or two islands together, or two peninsulas, without reference to size. The Isthmus of Suez alone prevents Africa from being an island, as that of Darien connects the two Americas.[406]

IURRAM. A Gaelic word signifying a boat-song, intended to regulate the strokes of the oars. Also, a song sung during any kind of work.

IVIGAR. A name in our northern isles for the sea-urchin, Echinus marinus.

IVORY GULL, or Snow-bird. The Larus eburneus of Arctic seas. It has a yellowish beak, jet black legs, and plumage of a dazzling white.