NAB. The bolt-toe, or cock of a gun-lock.

NABB. A cant term for the head. Also, a protuberance on the rocky summit of a hill; a rocky ledge below water.

NACA, or Nacelle. A French boat without mast or sail, used as early as the twelfth century.

NACRE. The mother-of-pearl which lines some shells, both univalve and bivalve.

NACTA. A small transport vessel of early times.

NADIR. The lower pole of the rational horizon, the other being the zenith.[491]

NAID. A northern term for a lamprey, or large eel.

NAIL, To. Is colloquially used for binding a person to a bargain. In weighing articles of food, a nail is 8 lbs.

NAILING A GUN. Synonymous with cloying or spiking. When necessary to abandon cannon, or when the enemy's artillery, though seized, cannot be taken away, it is proper to spike it, which is done by driving a steel or other spike into the vent. The best method sometimes to render a gun serviceable again is to drill a new vent. (See Spiking.)

NAILS OF SORTS. Nails used in carpentry under the denominations of 4, 6, 8, 10, 24, 30, and 40 penny-nails, all of different lengths.

NAKE! The old word to unsheath swords, or make them naked.

NAKED. State of a ship's bottom without sheathing. Also, a place without means of defence.

NAKHADAH, or Nacodah. An Arab sea-captain.

NAME. The name of a merchant ship, as well as the port to which she belongs, must be painted in a conspicuous manner on her stern. If changed, she must be registered de novo, and the old certificate cancelled.

NAME-BOARD. The arch-board, or part whereon the ship's name and port are painted.

NAME-BOOK. The Anglo-Saxon nom-bóc, a mustering list.

NANCY. An east-country term for a small lobster.

NANCY DAWSON. A popular air by which seamen were summoned to grog.

NANKIN. A light fawn-coloured or white cotton cloth, almost exclusively worn at one time in our ships on the India station. It was supplied from China, but is now manufactured in England, Malta, and the United States.

NANT. A brook, or small river, on the coasts of Wales.

NAPHTHA. A very inflammable, fiercely burning fluid, which oozes from the ground or rock in many different localities, and may be obtained by the distillation of coal, cannel, and other substances. It is nearly related to petroleum (which see), and is used for lighting, combustible, and various other purposes.

NAPIER'S BONES. Small rods, arranged by Lord Napier to expedite arithmetical calculations. In Hudibras:

NARKE. A ray of very wonderful electric powers.

NARROWING of the Floor-sweep. For this peculiar curve, see Half-breadth of the Rising.

NARROWS. The most confined part of a channel between two lands, or any contracted part of a navigable river.

NARWHAL. The Monodon monoceros, an animal of the cetacean order, found in the Arctic seas, and distinguished by the single long pointed tusk projecting straight forward from its upper jaw, whence it is also termed sea-unicorn.[492]

NATURAL FORTIFICATION. Those obstacles, in the form or nature of the country, which impede the approaches of an enemy.

NATURAL MOTION. A term applied to the descending parabolic curve of a shot or shell in falling.

NAUFRAGIATE, To. An old expression, meaning to suffer shipwreck. It occurs in Lithgow's Pilgrime's Farewell, 1618.

NAULAGE. A freight or fare.

NAUMACHIA. An artificial piece of water whereon the ancient Romans represented a sea-fight, supposed to have originated in the first Punic war.

NAUROPOMETER. An instrument for measuring the amount of a ship's heel or inclination at sea.

NAUSCOPY. The tact of discovering ships or land at considerable distances.

NAUTICAL. Relating to navigation, sailors, or maritime affairs in general.

NAUTICAL ALMANAC. A book of the first necessity to navigators. (See Ephemeris.)

NAUTICAL ASSESSORS. Persons of nautical experience appointed to assist the judge of the admiralty and other courts in technical difficulties.

NAUTICAL ASTRONOMY. That part of the celestial science which treats of the planets and stars so far as relates to the purposes of navigation.

NAUTICAL DAY. This day commences at noon, twelve hours before the civil day, and ends at noon of the day following. (See Day.)

NAUTICAL MILE (Mean) = 6075·6 feet.

NAUTICAL STARS. About 72 of the brightest, which have been selected for determining the latitude or the longitude, by lunar distances, and inserted, corrected to the year, in the Nautical Ephemeris.

NAUTICAL TABLES. Those especially computed for resolution of matters dependent on nautical astronomy, and navigation generally.

NAUTICUM FŒNUS. Marine usury; bottomry.

NAUTILUS. The pearly nautilus, N. pompilius, is a marine animal, belonging to the same class (Cephalopoda) as the cuttle-fish, but protected by a beautiful, chambered, discoid shell. The paper-nautilus (Argonauta argo) belongs to a different family of the same class, and has a simple, delicate, boat-like shell.

NAVAL. Of or belonging to a ship, or, as now commonly adopted, to the royal navy; hence, naval stores, naval officers, &c.

NAVAL ARCHITECTURE. The construction, or art and science, of building ships.

NAVAL ARMAMENT. A fleet or squadron of ships of war, fitted out for a particular service.

NAVAL CADET. See Cadet.

NAVAL HOSPITALS. Greenwich is styled by eminence the Royal Hospital, yet the naval medical establishments in England and the colonies[493] are all royal. At home they are Haslar, Plymouth, Yarmouth, Haulbowline, Chatham, and Woolwich; abroad, Malta, Jamaica, Halifax, Bermuda, Cape of Good Hope, and Hong Kong. Besides these useful hospitals, there are other stations of relief around the coasts.

NAVAL OFFICER. One belonging to the royal navy. Also, the person in charge of the stores in a royal dockyard abroad.

NAVAL RESERVE. A body of volunteers, consisting of coasters and able merchant seamen, who are drilled for serving on board our ships of war in case of need. They receive a fixed rate of compensation, become entitled to a pension, and enjoy other privileges. They are largely officered from their own body.

NAVAL SCIENCE. A knowledge of the theory of ship-building, seamanship, navigation, nautical astronomy, and tactics.

NAVAL STORES. All those particulars which are made use of, not only in the royal navy, but in every other kind of navigation. There are various statutes against stealing or embezzling them.

NAVAL STORE-SHIP. A government vessel, appropriated to carrying stores and munitions of war to different stations.

NAVAL TACTICS. The warlike evolutions of fleets, including such manœuvres as may be judged most suitable for attack, defence, or retreat, with precision. The science of tactics happens never to have proceeded from naval men. Thus Père la Hoste among the French, and a lawyer among the English, are the prime authorities. Moreover, it is a fact well known to those who served half a century back, when Lord Keith, Sir P.

Durham, Sir P. Malcolm, and B. Hallowell practised their squadrons, that questions remained in dispute and undecided for at least sixteen years.

NAVE-HOLE. The hole in the centre of a gun-truck for receiving the end of the axle-tree.

NAVEL HOODS. Those hoods wrought above and below the hawse-holes, outside a ship, where there are no cheeks to support a bolster.

NAVEL LAVER. The sea-weed Ulva umbilicus.

NAVEL LINE. See Line.

NAVIGABLE. Any channel capable of being passed by ships or boats.

NAVIGANT. An old word for sailor.

NAVIGATION. The art of conducting vessels on the sea, not only by the peculiar knowledge of seamanship in all its intricate details, but also by such a knowledge of the higher branches of nautical astronomy as enables the commander to hit his port, after a long succession of bad weather, and an absence of three or four months from all land. Any man without science may navigate the entire canals of Great Britain, but may be unable to pass from Plymouth to Guernsey.

NAVIGATION ACTS. Various statutes by which the legislature of Great Britain has in a certain degree restricted the intercourse of foreign vessels with her own ports, or those of her dependent possessions; the object being to promote the increase of British shipping.[494]

NAVIGATOR. A person skilled in the art of navigation. In old times, the ship's artist. Also, one who plies merely on canals. Also, the navvy who works on embankments, cuttings, &c.

NAVITHALAMUS. A word in Law-Latin signifying a yacht.

NAVVIES. The vigorous labourers employed in cutting canals, railroads, or river works in temporary gangs.

NAVY. Any assembly of ships, whether for commerce or war. More particularly the vessels of war which, belonging to the government of any state, constitute its maritime force. The Royal Navy of Great Britain is conducted under the direction of the lords-commissioners for executing the office of lord high-admiral, and by the following principal officers under them:—the controller of the navy, controlling dockyards, building, &c. , with his staff; the accountant-general, store-keeper general, and controller of victualling.

These several lords meet as a board at Somerset House on special days to give the affairs the force of the board of admiralty.

NAVY AGENTS. Selected mercantile houses, about fourteen, who manage the affairs of officers' pay, prizes, &c., for which the law authorizes a certain percentage. They hold powers of attorney to watch the interests of their clients.

NAVY BILLS. Bills of removal, transfer, &c., are not negotiable, nor can they be made other use of.

NAVY BOARD. The commissioners of the navy collectively considered, but long since abolished.

NAVY TRANSPORT. See Transport.

NAVY-YARD. A royal arsenal for the navy.

NAY-WORD. The old term for the watch-word, parole, or countersign.

NAZE. See Ness.

NEALED. See Arming.

NEALED-TO. A shore, with deep soundings close in.

NEAPED. The situation of a ship which, within a bar-harbour, is left aground on the spring-tides so that she cannot go to sea or be floated off till the return of the next spring-tides.

NEAP-TIDES. A term from the Ang. -Sax. nepflods. They are but medium tides, in respect to their opposites, the springs, being neither so high, so low, nor so rapid.

The phenomenon is owing to the attractions of the sun and moon then partly counteracting each other.

NEAR, AND NO NEAR. Synonymous terms used as a warning to the helmsman when too near the wind, not to come closer to it, but to keep the weather-helm in hand.

NEAT. See Net, as commercial weight.

NEB. This word, the Ang.-Sax. nebb, face as well as nose, is sometimes used for ness (which see). Also, a bird's beak.

NEBULA. An old term for a cluster of stars looking like a cloudy spot till separated by telescopic power; but the term is also now correctly applied to masses of nebulous matter only.[495]

NECESSARIES. Minor articles of clothing or equipment, prescribed by regulation, but provided by the men out of their own pay.

NECESSARY MONEY. An extra allowance formerly allowed to pursers for the coals, wood, turnery-ware, candles, and other necessaries provided by them.

NECESSITY. If a ship be compelled by necessity to change the order of the places to which she is insured, this is not deemed deviation, and the underwriters are still liable.

NECK. The elbow or part connecting the blade and socket of a bayonet. Goose-neck, at the ends of booms, to connect them with the sides, or at the yard-arm for the studding-sail boom-iron.

NECK of a Gun. The narrow part where the chase meets the swell of the muzzle.

NECKED. Tree-nails are said to be necked where they are cracked, bent, or nipped between the outside skin and the timbers of a vessel, whether from bad driving or severe straining.

NECKING. A small neat moulding at the foot of the taffrail over the light.

NECKLACE. A ring of wads placed round a gun, as sometimes practised, for readiness and stowage. Also, a strop round a lower mast carrying leading-blocks. Also, the chain necklace, to which the futtock-shrouds are secured in some vessels.

NECK OF LAND. Dividing two portions of water, or it may be the neck of a peninsula.

NECK OF THE CASCABLE. The part between the swell of the breech of a gun and the button. Its narrowest part within the button.