The Sailor's Word-Book Part 7

ALLEGE. A French ballast-boat.

ALLEGIANCE. The legal obedience of a subject to his sovereign in return for the protection afforded; a debt which, in a natural-born subject, cannot be cancelled by any change of time, or place, or circ.u.mstance, without the united consent of the legislature.

ALLER-FLOAT, OR ALLER-TROUT. A species of fine trout frequenting the shady holes under the roots of the _aller_ or alder tree, on the banks of rivers and brooks.

ALLIANCE. A league or confederacy between sovereigns or states, for mutual safety and defence. Subjects of allies cannot trade with the common enemy, on pain of the property being confiscated as prize to the captors.

ALLICIENCY. The attractive power of the magnet.

ALLIGATOR [from the Spanish _lagarto_]. The crocodile of America. The head of this voracious animal is flat and imbricate; several of the under teeth enter into and pa.s.s through the upper jaw; the nape is naked; on the tail are two rough lateral lines.

ALLIGATOR WATER. The brackish water inside the mouths of tropical rivers, with white and muddy surface running into the sea.

ALLISION. Synonymous in marine law with _collision_, though the jurists of Holland introduce it to mark a distinction between one vessel running against another and two vessels striking each other.

ALLOCUTION. The harangue anciently made by the Roman generals to exhort their forces.

ALLOTMENT. A part of the pay apportioned monthly to the wives, children, mothers, or dest.i.tute fathers of the warrant and petty officers, seamen, and marines of ships of war on foreign stations. In the merchant service all such stipulations for allotting any portion of a seaman's wages during his absence must be inserted in the agreement.

ALLOTMENT-LIST. A doc.u.ment containing the requisite details, attested by the four signing officers, to be transmitted to the Navy Office.

ALLOTTING. Persons agreeing to buy a ship's cargo appoint a disinterested person to allot a share to each by affixing their respective names.

ALLOW, TO. To concede a destined portion of stores, &c.

ALLOWANCE. The ration or allotted quantum of provisions which each individual receives; and it is either double, full, two-thirds, half, or short, according to incidents.

ALLUVION. An accretion formed along sea-sh.o.r.es and the banks of rivers by the deposition of the various substances held in solution or washed by the waters. Sea alluvions differ from those of rivers, in that they form a slope _towards_ the land.

ALLY. A friendly or confederated state.

ALMACANTARS. Circles parallel to the horizon, and supposed to pa.s.s through every degree of the meridian. An Arabic term, synonymous with _parallels of lat.i.tude_.

ALMACANTARS STAFF. An instrument formerly used at sea for observing the sun's amplitude, formed of an arc of about 15 degrees.

ALMADIA. A small African canoe, made of the bark of trees. Some of the larger square-sterned negro-boats are also thus designated.

ALMAFADAS. Large dunnage cut on the coast of Portugal.

ALMAGEST. The celebrated work of Ptolemy on geometry and astronomy.

Ricciolus adopted the term in 1651 for his _Body of Mathematical Science_. It became general, whence Chaucer--

"His _Almagiste_ and bookes, grete and small."

ALMANAC. A record of the days, feasts, and celestial phenomena of the year. Though confounded with calendar, it is essentially different--the latter relating to time in general, and the almanac to that of a year; but the term calendar can be properly used for a particular year. (_See_ EPHEMERIS.)

ALMATH [_Hamal_]. The star in Aries whence the first mansion of the moon takes its name. The Frankeleine in Chaucer says:--

"And by his eighte speres in his werking, He knew ful wel how far _Alnath_ was shove Fro the hed of thilke fix Aries above, That in the ninthe spere considered is."

ALMIRANTE. A great sea-officer or high-admiral in Spain.

ALMIRANTESA. The wife of an admiral.

ALMURY. The upright part of an astrolabe.

ALNUS CAVER. Transport-ships of the early English, so called from the wood of which they were constructed.

ALOFT [Anglo-Saxon, _alofte_, on high]. Above; overhead; on high.

Synonymous with up above the tops, at the mast-head, or anywhere about the higher yards, masts, and rigging of ships.--_Aloft there!_ the hailing of people in the tops.--_Away aloft!_ the command to the people in the rigging to climb to their stations. Also, heaven: "Poor Tom is gone _aloft_."

ALONDE. An old English word for ash.o.r.e, on land.

ALONG [Saxon]. Lengthwise.--_Alongside_, by the side of a ship; side by side.--_Lying along_, when the wind, being on the beam, presses the ship over to leeward with the press of sail; or, _lying along_ the land.

ALONGSh.o.r.e. A common nautical phrase signifying along the coast, or a course which is in sight of the sh.o.r.e, and nearly parallel to it. (_See_ 'LONGSh.o.r.e.)

ALONGST. In the middle of a stream; moored head and stern.

ALOOF. The old word for "keep your luff," in the act of sailing to the wind. (_See_ LUFF.)--_Keep aloof_, at a distance.

ALOOFE. _See_ ALEWIFE.

ALOW. Synonymous with _below_; as _alow_ and _aloft_, though more properly _low_ and _aloft_. Carrying all sail _alow and aloft_ is when the reefs are shaken out, and all the studding-sails set.

ALPHABETICAL LIST. This is a list which accompanies the ship's books; it contains the names and number of every person in the pay-book.

ALTAIR. The bright nautical star a Aquilae, binary.

ALTAR. A platform in the upper part of a dock.

ALTEMETRIE. The old term for trigonometry among navigators.

ALTERNATE. Reciprocal.--_Alternate angles_ are the internal angles formed by a line cutting two parallels, and lying on the opposite side of the cutting line; the one below the first parallel, and the other above.--_Alternate ratio_ is that of which the antecedents and consequents bear respectively to each other in any proportion which has the quant.i.ties of the same kind.

ALTERNATING WINDS. Peculiar winds blowing at stated times one way, and then, from a sudden alteration in the temperature of the elements, setting in the contrary direction. A remarkable instance is that of the Gulf of Arta in the Ionian Sea, where the effect is promoted by local causes. All land and sea breezes are strictly alternating winds. These however are mostly intertropical; the solar heat causing the sea-breeze to blow on the land by day, and condensation and greater heat of the sea causing a reaction when the land has cooled to a lower temperature.

ALTERNATION OR PERMUTATION OF QUANt.i.tIES, is the varying or changing their order, and is easily found by a continual multiplication of all numbers.

ALTIMETRY. Trigonometry; the art of measuring heights or depressions of land, whether accessible or not.

ALt.i.tUDE. The elevation of any of the heavenly bodies above the plane of the horizon, or its angular distance from the horizon, measured in the direction of a great circle pa.s.sing through the zenith. Also the third dimension of a body, considered with regard to its elevation above the ground.--_Apparent alt.i.tude_ is that which appears by sensible observations made on the surface of the globe.--_Alt.i.tude of the pole._ The arc of the meridian between the pole of the heavens and the horizon of any place, and therefore equal to its geographical lat.i.tude.--_Alt.i.tude of the cone of the earth's and moon's shadow_, is the height of the one or the other during an eclipse, and is measured from the centre of the body.--_Alt.i.tude of a shot or sh.e.l.l._ The perpendicular height of the vertex of the curve in which it moves above the horizon.--_Meridian alt.i.tude._ The arc of the meridian,--or greater or less alt.i.tude, measured from the horizon, of a celestial object in its pa.s.sage over the meridian, above or below the pole, of the place of the observer. In Polar regions two such transits of the sun, and in England similarly, circ.u.mpolar stars afford double observations for the determination of time or lat.i.tude. The general term is understood by seamen to denote mid-day, when the pa.s.sage and meridian alt.i.tude of the sun affords the lat.i.tude.--_True alt.i.tude_ is that produced by correcting the apparent one for parallax and refraction.

ALTMIKLEC. A silver Turkish coin of 60 paras, or 2_s._ 9-1/2_d._ sterling.

ALUFFE, OR ALOOF. Nearer to the wind. This is a very old form of _luff_; being noticed by Matthew Paris, and other writers, as a sea-term. (_See_ LUFF.)

ALURE. An old term for the gutter or drain along a battlement or parapet wall.