BARGEES. The crews of canal-boats and barges.
BARGE-MATE. The officer who steers when a high personage is to visit the ship.
BARGE-MEN. The crew of the barge, who are usually picked men. Also, the large maggots with black heads that infest biscuit.
BARGET. An old term for a small barge.
BARILLA. An alkali procured by burning _Salsola kali_ and other sea-shore plants. It forms a profitable article of Mediterranean commerce. (_See_ KELP.)
BARK. The exterior covering of vegetable bodies, many of which are useful in making paper, cordage, cloth, dyes, and medicines.
BARK, OR BARQUE [from _barca_, Low Latin]. A general name given to small ships, square-sterned, without head-rails; it is, however, peculiarly appropriated by seamen to a three-masted vessel with only fore-and-aft sails on her mizen-mast.--_Bark-rigged._ Rigged as a bark, with no square sails on the mizen-mast.
BARKANTINE, OR BARQUANTINE. A name applied on the great lakes of North America to a vessel square-rigged on the fore-mast, and fore-and-aft rigged on the main and mizen masts. They are not three-masted schooners, as they have a regular brigantine's fore-mast. They are long in proportion to their other dimensions, to suit the navigation of the canals which connect some of these lakes.
BARKERS. An old term for lower-deck guns and pistols.
BARKEY. A sailor's term for the pet ship to which he belongs.
BARKING-IRONS. Large duelling pistols.
BARLING. An old term for the lamprey.--_Barling-spars_, fit for any smaller masts or yards.
BARNACLE (_Lepas anatifera_). A species of shell-fish, often found sticking by its pedicle to the bottom of ships, doing no other injury than deadening the way a little:
"_Barnacles_, termed _soland geese_ In th' islands of the Orcades."--_Hudibras._
They were formerly supposed to produce the barnacle-goose! (vide old cyclopedias): the poet, however, was too good a naturalist to believe this, but here, as in many other places, he means to banter some of the papers which were published by the first establishers of the Royal Society. The shell is compressed and multivalve. The tentacula are long and pectinated like a feather, whence arose the fable of their becoming geese. They belong to the order of _Cirripeds_.
BARNAGH. The Manx or Gaelic term for a limpet.
BAROMETER. A glass tube of 36 inches in length, filled with the open end upwards with refined mercury--thus boiled and suddenly inverted into a cistern, which is furnished with a leathern bag, on which the atmosphere, acting by its varying weight, presses the fluid metal up to corresponding heights in the tube, easily read off by an external scale attached thereto. By attentive observations on this simple prophet, practised seamen are enabled to foretell many approaching changes of wind or weather, and thus by shortening sail in time, save hull, spars, and lives. This instrument also affords the means of accurately determining the heights or depressions of mountains and valleys. This is the _mercurial_ barometer; another, the _aneroid_ barometer, invented by Monsr. Vidi, measures approximately, but not with the permanence of the mercurial. It is constructed to measure the weight of a column of air or pressure of the atmosphere, by pressure on a very delicate metallic box hermetically sealed. It is more sensible to passing changes, but not so reliable as the mercurial barometer. 29.60 is taken as the mean pressure in England; as it rises or falls below this mark, fine weather or strong winds may be looked for:--30.60 is very high, and 29.00 very low. The barometer is affected by the direction of the wind, thus N.N.E. is the highest, and S.S.W. the lowest--therefore these matters govern the decision of men of science, who are not led astray by the change of reading alone. The seaman pilot notes the heavens; the direction of the wind--and the pressure due to that direction--not forgetting sudden changes of temperature. Attention is due to the surface, whether convex or concave.
BARQUE. The same as _bark_ (which see).
BARR. A peremptory exception to a proposition.
BARRA-BOATS. Vessels of the Western Isles of Scotland, carrying ten or twelve men. They are extremely sharp fore and aft, having no floor, but with sides rising straight from the keel, so that a transverse section resembles the letter V. They are swift and safe, for in proportion as they heel to a breeze their bearings are increased, while from their lightness they are as buoyant as Norway skiffs.
BARRACAN. A strong undiapered camblet, used for garments in the Levant and in Barbary; anciently it formed the Roman toga.
BARRACK-MASTER. The officer placed in charge of a barrack.
BARRACKS. Originally mere log-huts, but of late extensive houses built for the accommodation and quartering of troops. Also, the portion of the lower deck where the marines mess. Also, little cabins made by Spanish fishermen on the sea-shore, called _barracas_, whence our name.
BARRACK SMACK. A corruption of _Berwick smack_; a word applied to small Scotch traders. The masters were nicknamed _barrack-masters_.
BARRATRY. Any fraudulent act of the master or mariners committed to the prejudice of the ship's owners or underwriters, whether by fraudulently losing the vessel, deserting her, selling her, or committing any other embezzlement. The diverting a ship from her right course, with evil intent, is barratry.
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, constituting 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 spaces 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 impassable.
BARRIER REEFS. Coral reefs that either extend in straight lines in front of the shores 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.
BARSE. 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 assuming various forms, the length is measured from the after-extreme of the breech, exclusive of any button or other adjunct.