CONVALESCENT. Those men who are recovering health, but not sufficiently recovered to perform their duties, are reported by the surgeon "convalescent." Convalescents are amused by picking oakum!

CONVENIENT PORT. A general law-term in cases of capture, within a certain latitude of discretion; a place where a vessel can lie in safety, and holding ready communication with the tribunals which have to decide the question of capture.

CONVENTION. An agreement made between hostile troops, for the evacuation of a post, or the suspension of hostilities.

CONVERGENT. In geography, a stream which comes into another stream, but whose course is unknown, is simply a convergent.

CONVERSION. Reducing a vessel by a deck, thereby converting a line-of-battle ship into a frigate, or a crank three-decker into a good two-decker; or a serviceable vessel into a hulk, resembling a prison or dungeon, internally and externally, as much as possible.

CONVERSION OF STORES. Adapting the sails, ropes, or timbers from one purpose to another, with the least possible waste.

CONVEXITY. The curved limb of the moon; an outward curve.

CONVICT-SHIP. A vessel appropriated to the convicts of a dockyard; also one hired to carry out convicts to their destination.

CONVOY. A fleet of merchant ships similarly bound, protected by an armed force. Also, the ship or ships appointed to conduct and defend them on their passage. Also, a guard of troops to escort a supply of stores to a detached force.

CONVOY-INSTRUCTIONS. The printed regulations supplied by the senior officer to each ship of the convoy.

CONVOY-LIST. A return of the merchantmen placed under the protection of men-of-war, for safe conduct to their destination.

COOK. A man of each mess who is caterer for the day, and answerable[212] too, wherefore he is allowed the surplus grog, termed plush (which see). The cook, par excellence, in the navy, was a man of importance, responsible for the proper cooking of the food, yet not overboiling the meat to extract the fat—his perquisite. The coppers were closely inspected daily by the captain, and if they soiled a cambric handkerchief the cook's allowance was stopped. Now, the ship's cook is a first-class petty officer, and cannot be punished as heretofore.

In a merchantman the cook is, ex officio, the hero of the fore-sheet, as the steward is of the main one.

COOKING A DAY'S WORK. To save the officer in charge. Reckoning too is cooked, as in a certain Antarctic discovery of land, which James Ross afterwards sailed over.

COOK-ROOM, or Cook-house. The galley or caboose containing the cooking apparatus, and where victuals are dressed.

COOLIE, Couley, Kouli, or Chuliah. A person who carries a load; a porter or day-labourer in India and China.

COOMB. The Anglo-Saxon comb; a low place inclosed with hills; a valley. (See Cwm.)

COOMINGS, or Combings. The rim of the hatchways. (See Coamings.)

COOM OF A WAVE. The comb or crest. The white summit when it breaks.

COON-TRAIE. A Manx and Erse term for the neap-tide.

COOP, or Fish-coop. A hollow vessel made with twigs, with which fish are taken in the Humber. (See Hen-coop.)

COOPER. A rating for a first-class petty officer, who repairs casks, &c.

COOT. A water-fowl common on lakes and rivers (Fulica atra). The toes are long and not webbed, but bordered by a scalloped membrane. The name is sometimes used for the guillemot (Uria troile), and often applied to a stupid person.

COOTH. See Cuth.

COP, or Copt. The top of a conical hill.

COPE. An old English word for cape.

COPECK. See Kopek.

COPERNICAN SYSTEM. The Pythagorean system of the universe, revived by Copernicus in the sixteenth century, and now confirmed; in which the sun occupies the central space, and the planets with their attendant satellites revolve about him.

COPILL. An old term for a variety of the coble.

COPING. In ship-building, turning the ends of iron lodging-knees, so that they may hook into the beams.

COPPER, To. To cover the ship's bottom with prepared copper.

COPPER-BOLTS. See Copper-fastened.

COPPERED, or Copper-bottomed. Sheathed with thin sheets of copper, which prevents the teredo eating into the planks, or shell and weed accumulating on the surface, whereby a ship is retarded in her sailing.

COPPER-FASTENED. The bolts and other metal work in the bottom of ships, made of copper instead of iron, so that the vessel may afterwards be[213] coppered without danger of its corroding the heads of the bolts by galvanic action, as ensues when copper and iron are in contact with sea-water.

COPPER-NAILS. These are chiefly used in boat-building, and for plank nails in the vicinity of the binnacle, as iron affects the compass-needle. They are not to be confounded with composition nails, which are cast. (See Roof, or Rove and Clinch.)

COPPERS. The ship's boilers for cooking; the name is generally used, even where the apparatus may be made of iron.

COQUILLAGE. Shell-fish in general. It applies to anchorages where oysters abound, or where fish are plentiful, and shell-fish for bait easily obtainable. It is specially a term belonging to French and Spanish fishermen.

CORAB. A sort of boat, otherwise called coracle.

CORACLE. An ancient British truckle or boat, constructed of wicker-work, and still in use amongst Welsh fishermen and on the Irish lakes. It is covered by skins, oil-cloth, &c. , which are removed when out of use; it is of an oval form; contains one man, who, on reaching the shore, shoulders his coracle, deposits it in safety, and covers it with dried rushes or heather. The Arctic baidar is of similar construction.

It is probably of the like primitive fabric with the cymba sutiles of Herodotus.

CORACORA. See Korocora.

CORAL. A name applied to the hard calcareous support or skeleton of many species of marine zoophytes. The coral-producing animals abound chiefly in tropical seas, sometimes forming, by the aggregated growth of countless generations, reefs, barriers, and islands of vast extent. The "red coral" (Corallium rubrum) of the Mediterranean is highly prized for ornamental purposes.

CORALAN. A small open boat for the Mediterranean coral fishery.

CORAL-BAND. See Sand and Coral Bank or Islet.

CORBEILLE [Fr. basket]. Miner's basket; small gabion used temporarily for shelter to riflemen, and placed on the parapet, either to fire through, or for protection from a force placed on a higher level.

CORBILLARD [Fr.] A large boat of transport.

CORD. Small rope; that of an inch or less in circumference.

CORD or Churd of Wood; as firewood. A statute stack is 8 feet long, 4 feet broad, and 4 feet high.

CORDAGE. A general term for the running-rigging of a ship, as also for rope of any size which is kept in reserve, and for all stuff to make ropes.—Cable-laid cordage. Ropes, the three strands of which are composed of three other strands, as are cables and cablets. (See Rope.)

CORDILLA. The coarse German hemp, otherwise called torse.

CORDLIE. A name for the tunny fish.

CORDON. In fortification, the horizontal moulding of masonry along the top of the true escarp. Also, sometimes used for lines of circumvallation or blockade, or any connected chain of troops or even sentries. Also, the riband of an order of knighthood or honour, and hence used by the[214] French as signifying a member thereof, as Cordon bleu, Knight of the order of the Holy Ghost, &c.

CORDOVAN. Leather made from seal-skin; the term is derived from the superior leather prepared at Cordova in Spain.

CORDUROY. Applied to roads formed in new settlements, of trees laid roughly on sleepers transverse to the direction of the road; as suddenly for artillery.

CORKIR, or Cudbear. The Lecanora tartarea, a lichen producing a purple dye, growing on the stones of the Western Isles, and in Norway.

CORMORANT. A well-known sea-bird (Phalacrocorax carbo) of the family Pelecanidæ.

CORN, To. A remainder of the Anglo-Saxon ge-cyrned, salted. To preserve meat for a time by salting it slightly.

CORNED. Slightly intoxicated. In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, mention is made of "corny ale."

CORNED POWDER. Powder granulated from the mill-cakes and sifted.

CORNET. A commissioned officer who carries the colours belonging to a cavalry troop, equivalent to an ensign in the infantry; the junior subaltern rank in the horse.

CORNISH RING. The astragal of the muzzle or neck of a gun; it is the next ring from the mouth backwards. (Now disused.)

CORN-SALAD. A species of Valerianella. The top-leaves are used for salad, a good anti-scorbutic with vinegar.

CORNS OF POWDER. The small grains that gunpowder consists of. The powder reduced for fire-works, quill-tubes, &c.; sometimes by alcohol.

COROMONTINES. A peculiar race of negroes, brought from the interior of Africa, and sold; but so ferocious as to be greatly dreaded in the West Indies.

CORONA. In timber, consists of rows of microscopic cylinders, situated between the wood and the pith; it is that part from which all the branches take their rise, and from it all the wood-threads grow. —Corona astronomically means the luminous ring or glory which surrounds the sun or moon during an eclipse, or the intervention of a thin cloud. They are generally faintly coloured at their edges. Frequently when there is a halo encircling the moon, there is a small corona more immediately around it.

Coronæ, as well as halos, have been observed to prognosticate rain, hail, or snow, being the result of snow or dense vapours nearer the earth, through which the object becomes hazy.

CORONER. An important officer. Seamen should understand that his duties embrace all acts within a line drawn from one headland to another; or within the body of the county. His duty is to investigate, on the part of the crown, all accidents, deaths, wrecks, &c.; and his warrant is not to be contemned or avoided.

COROUSE. The ancient weapon invented by Duilius for boarding. An attempt was made in 1798 to re-introduce it in French privateers.

COROWNEL. The old word for colonel.[215]

CORPHOUN. An out-of-the-way name for a herring.

CORPORAL, Ship's. In a ship of war was, under the master-at-arms, employed to teach the sailors the use of small arms; to attend at the gangways when entering ports, and see that no spirituous liquors were brought on board without leave. Also, to extinguish the fire and candles at eight o'clock in winter, and nine o'clock in summer, when the evening gun was fired; and to see that there were no lights below, but such as were under the charge of the proper sentinels. In the marines or army in general the corporal is a non-commissioned officer next below the sergeant in the scale of authority. The ship's corporal of the present day is the superior of the first-class working petty officers, and solely attends to police matters under the master-at-arms or superintendent-in-chief.

CORPORAL OATH. So called because the witness when he swears lays his right hand on the holy evangelists, or New Testament.

CORPOSANT. [Corpo santo, Ital.] See Compasant.

CORPS. Any body of troops acting under one commander.

CORPSE. Jack's term for the party of marines embarked; the corps.

CORRECTIONS. Reductions of observations of the sun, moon, or stars.

CORRIDOR. See Covert-way.

CORRYNE POWDER. Corn-powder, a fine kind of gunpowder.

CORSAIR. A name commonly given to the piratical cruisers of Barbary, who frequently plundered the merchant ships indiscriminately.

CORSELET. The old name for a piece of armour used to cover the body of a fighting-man.

CORTEGE. The official staff, civil or military.

CORUSCATIONS. Atmospheric flashes of light, as in auroras.

CORVETTES. Flush-decked ships, equipped with one tier of guns: fine vessels for warm climates, from admitting a free circulation of air. The Bermuda-built corvettes were deemed superior vessels, swift, weatherly, "lie to" well, and carry sail in a stiff breeze. The cedar of which they are chiefly built is very buoyant, but also brittle.

CORVORANT. An old mode of spelling cormorant.

COSIER. A lubber, a botcher, a tailoring fellow [coser, Sp. to sew?]

COSMICAL RISING AND SETTING of the Heavenly Bodies. Their rising and setting with the sun.