BARACOOTA. A tropical fish (Sphyræna baracuda), considered in the West Indies to be dangerously poisonous at times, nevertheless eaten, and deemed the sea-salmon.
BARBACAN. In fortification, an outer defence.
BARBADOES-TAR. A mineral fluid bitumen resembling petroleum, of nauseous taste and offensive smell.
BARBALOT. The barbel. Also, a puffin.
BARB-BOLTS. Those which have their points jagged or barbed to make them hold securely, where those commonly in use cannot be clinched. The same as rag-bolt. Those of copper used for the false keel.
BARBECUE. A tropical custom of dressing a pig whole.
BARBEL (Barbus vulgaris). An English river-fish of the carp family, distinguished by the four appendant beards, whence its name is derived. It is between 2 and 3 feet in length, and coarse. Also, barbel is a small piece of armour which protects part of the bassenet.
BARBER. A rating on the ships' books for one who shaves the people, for which he receives the pay of an ordinary seaman. In meteorology, barber is a singular vapour rising in streams from the sea surface—owing probably to exhalations being condensed into a visible form, on entering a cold atmosphere. It is well known on the shores of Nova Scotia. Also, the condensed breath in frosty weather on beard or moustaches in Arctic travelling.
BARBETTE. A mode of mounting guns to fire over the parapet, so as to have free range, instead of through embrasures.
BARCA-LONGA. A large Spanish undecked coasting-vessel, navigated with pole-masts, i.e. single-masts, without any top-mast or upper part; and high square sails, called lug-sails. Propelled with sweeps as well. The name is also applied to Spanish gunboats by our seamen.
BARCES. Short guns with a large bore formerly used in ships.
BARCHETTA. A small bark for transporting water, provisions, &c.
BARCONE. A short Mediterranean lighter.
BAREKA. A small barrel: spelled also barika (Sp. baréca). Hence the nautical name breaker for a small cask or keg.
BARE-POLES. The condition of a ship having no sails set when out at sea, and either scudding or lying-to by stress of weather. (See Under Bare Poles.)
BARE-ROOM. An old phrase for bore-down.
BARGE. A boat of a long, slight, and spacious construction, generally carvel-built, double-banked, for the use of admirals and captains of ships of war.—Barge, in boat attacks, is next in strength to the launch. It is likewise a vessel or boat of state, furnished and equipped in the most sumptuous style;—and of this sort we may naturally suppose to have been the famous barge or galley of Cleopatra, which, according to the beautiful description of Shakspeare—
"Like a burnished throne
Burnt on the water: the poop was beaten gold,
Purple her sails; and so perfumed, that
The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver.
Which to the tune of flutes kept time, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster
As amorous of their strokes."
The barges of the lord-mayor, civic companies, &c., and the coal-barges of the Thames are varieties. Also, an early man-of-war, of about 100 tons. Also, an east-country vessel of peculiar construction. Also, a flat-bottomed vessel of burden, used on rivers for conveying goods from one place to another, and loading and unloading ships: it has various names, as a Ware barge, a west-country barge, a sand barge, a row-barge, a Severn trough, a light horseman, &c. They are usually fitted with a large sprit-sail to a mast, which, working upon a hinge, is easily struck for passing under bridges. Also, the bread-barge or tray or basket, for containing biscuit at meals.
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