The Sailor's Word-Book Part 23

BARRED KILLIFISH. A small fish from two to four inches in length, which frequents salt-water creeks, floats, and the vicinity of wharves.

BARREL. A cylindrical vessel for holding both liquid and dry goods.

Also, a commercial measure of 31-1/2 gallons.

BARREL OF A CAPSTAN. The cylinder between the whelps and the paul rim, const.i.tuting the main-piece.

BARREL OF A PUMP. The wooden tube which forms the body of the engine.

BARREL OF SMALL ARMS. The tube through which the bullets are discharged.

In artillery the term belongs to the construction of certain guns, and signifies the inner tube, as distinguished from the breech piece, trunnion-piece, and hoops or outer coils, the other essential parts of "built-up guns" (which see).

BARREL OF THE WHEEL. The cylinder round which the tiller-ropes are wound.

BARREL-BUILDER. The old rating for a cooper.

BARREL-BULK. A measure of capacity for freight in a ship, equal to five cubic feet: so that eight barrel-bulk are equal to one ton measurement.

BARREL-SCREW. A powerful machine, consisting of two large poppets, or male screws, moved by levers in their heads, upon a bank of plank, with a female screw at each end. It is of great use in starting a launch.

BARRICADE. A strong wooden rail, supported by stanchions extending as a fence across the foremost part of the quarter-deck, on the top of which some of the seamen's hammocks are usually stowed in time of battle. In a vessel of war the vacant s.p.a.ces between the stanchions are commonly filled with rope-mats, cork, or pieces of old cable; and the upper part, which contains a double rope-netting above the sail, is stuffed with full hammocks to intercept small shot in the time of battle. Also, a temporary fortification or fence made with abatis, palisades, or any obstacles, to bar the approach of an enemy by a given avenue.

BARRIER OF ICE. Ice stretching from the land-ice to the sea or main ice, or across a channel, so as to render it impa.s.sable.

BARRIER REEFS. Coral reefs that either extend in straight lines in front of the sh.o.r.es of a continent or large island, or encircle smaller isles, in both cases being separated from the land by a channel of water.

Barrier reefs in New South Wales, the Bermudas, Laccadives, Maldives, &c.

BARRIERS. A martial exercise of men armed with short swords, within certain railings which separated them from the spectators. It has long been discontinued in England.

BARROW. A hillock, a tumulus.

Ba.r.s.e. The common river-perch.

BARTIZAN. The overhanging turrets on a battlement.

BARUTH. An Indian measure, with a corresponding weight of 3-1/2 lbs.

avoirdupois.

BASE. The breech of a gun. Also, the lowest part of the perimeter of a geometrical figure. When applied to a delta it is that edge of it which is washed by the sea, or recipient of the deltic branches. Also, the lowest part of a mountain or chain of mountains. Also, the level line on which any work stands, as the foot of a pillar. Also, an old boat-gun; a wall-piece on the musketoon principle, carrying a five-ounce ball.

BASE-LINE. In strategy, the line joining the various points of a base of operations. In surveying, the base on which the triangulation is founded.

BASE OF OPERATIONS. In strategy, one or a series of strategic points at which are established the magazines and means of supply necessary for an army in the field.

BASE-RING. In guns of cast-metal, the flat moulding round the breech at that part where the longitudinal surface ends and the vertical termination or cascable begins. The length of the gun is reckoned from the after-edge of the base-ring to the face of the muzzle: but in built-up guns, there being generally no base-ring moulded, and the breech a.s.suming various forms, the length is measured from the after-extreme of the breech, exclusive of any b.u.t.ton or other adjunct.

BASHAW. A Turkish t.i.tle of honour and command; more properly _pacha_.

BASIL. The angle to which the edge of shipwrights' cutting tools is ground away.

BASILICON. An ointment composed of wax, resin, pitch, black resin, and olive oil. _Yellow basilicon_, of olive oil, yellow resin, Burgundy pitch, and turpentine.

BASILICUS. A name of Regulus or the Lion's Heart, a Leonis; a star of the first magnitude.

BASILISK. An old name for a long 48-pounder, the gun next in size to the carthoun: called basilisk from the snakes or dragons sculptured in the place of dolphins. According to Sir William Monson its random range was 3000 paces. Also, in still earlier times, a gun throwing an iron ball of 200 lbs. weight.

BASILLARD. An old term for a poniard.

BASIN. A wet-dock provided with flood-gates for restraining the water, in which shipping may be kept afloat in all times of tide. Also, all those sheltered s.p.a.ces of water which are nearly surrounded with slopes from which waters are received; these receptacles have a circular shape and narrow entrance. Geographically basins may be divided, as upper, lower, lacustrine, fluvial, Mediterranean, &c.

BASIS. _See_ BASE.

BASKET. In field-works, baskets or corbeilles are used, to be filled with earth, and placed by one another, to cover the men from the enemy's shot.

BASKET-FISH. A name for several species of _Euryale_; a kind of star-fish, the arms of which divide and subdivide many times, and curl up and intertwine at the ends, giving the whole animal something of the appearance of a round basket.

BASKET-HILT. The guard continued up the hilt of a cutla.s.s, so as to protect the whole hand from injury.

BASKING SHARK. So called from being often seen lying still in the sunshine. A large cartilaginous fish, the _Squalus maximus_ of Linnaeus, inhabiting the Northern Ocean. It attains a length of 30 feet, but is neither fierce nor voracious. Its liver yields from eight to twelve barrels of oil.

Ba.s.s, OR BAST. A soft sedge or rush (_Juncus laevis_), of which coa.r.s.e kinds of rope and matting are made. A Gaelic term for the blade of an oar.

Ba.s.sE. A species of perch (_Perca labrax_), found on the coast and in estuaries, commonly about 18 inches long.

Ba.s.sOS. A name in old charts for shoals; whence bas-fond and ba.s.so-fondo. Rocks a-wash, or below water.

BAST. Lime-tree, linden (_Tilia europea_). Bast is made also from the bark of various other trees, macerated in water till the fibrous layers separate. In the Pacific Isles it is very fine and strong, from _Hibiscus tiliaceus_.

BASTA. A word in former use for _enough_, from the Italian.

b.a.s.t.a.r.d. A term applied to all pieces of ordnance which are of unusual or irregular proportions: the government b.a.s.t.a.r.d-cannon had a 7-inch bore, and sent a 40-lb. shot. Also, a fair-weather square sail in some Mediterranean craft, and occasionally used for an awning.

b.a.s.t.a.r.d-MACKEREL, OR HORSE-MACKEREL. The _Caranx trachurus_, a dry, coa.r.s.e, and unwholesome fish, of the family _s...o...b..idae_, very common in the Mediterranean.

b.a.s.t.a.r.d-PITCH. A mixture of colophony, black pitch, and tar. They are boiled down together, and put into barrels of pine-wood, forming, when the ingredients are mixed in equal portions, a substance of a very liquid consistence, called in France _bray gras_. If a thicker consistence is desired, a greater proportion of colophony is added, and it is cast in moulds. It is then called _b.a.s.t.a.r.d-pitch_.

BASTE, TO. To beat in punition. A mode of sewing in sail-making.

BASTILE. A temporary wooden tower, used formerly in naval and military warfare.

BASTIONS. Projecting portions of a rampart, so disposed that the bottom of the escarp of each part of the whole rampart may be defended from the parapet of some other part. Their form and dimensions are influenced by many considerations, especially by the effect and range of fire-arms; but it is essential to them to have two faces and two flanks; the former having an average length, according to present systems, of 130 yards, the latter of 40 yards.

BASTON, OR BATON. A club used of old by authority. (_See_ BATOON.)

BASTONADO. Beating a criminal with sticks [from _bastone_, a cudgel]. A punishment common among Jews, Greeks, and Romans, and still practised in the Levant, China, and Russia.

BAT, OR SEA-BAT. An Anglo-Saxon term for boat or vessel. Also a broad-bodied thoracic fish, with a small head, and distinguished by its large triangular dorsal and a.n.a.l fins, which exceed the length of the body. It is the _Chaetodon vespertilio_ of naturalists.

BAT AND FORAGE. A regulated allowance in money and forage to officers in the field.