BREAST-WORK. A sort of balustrade of rails, mouldings, or stanchions, which terminates the quarter-deck and poop at the fore ends, and also incloses the forecastles both before and behind. (See Parapet.) Now applicable to the poop-rails only. In fortification, it signifies a parapet thrown up as high as the breasts of the men defending it.
BREATHER. A tropical squall.
BREATH OF WIND. All but a dead calm.
BREECHING. A strong rope passing through at the cascable of a gun, used to secure it to the ship's side, and prevent it recoiling too much in time of battle, also to secure it when the ship labours; it is fixed by reeving it through a thimble stropped upon the cascable or knob at the breech of the gun; one end is rove and clinched, and the other is passed through the ring-bolt in the ship's side, and seized back. The breeching is of sufficient length to let the muzzle of the cannon come within the ship's side to be charged, or to be housed and lashed. Clinch-shackles have superseded the ring-bolts, so that guns may be instantly unshackled and shifted.
BREECHING-BOLT. Applies to the above.
BREECH-LOADER. A gun, large or small, charged at the breech. The method is a very old one revived, but with such scientific modifications as to have enormously increased the effectiveness of small-arms; with cannon its successful practical application to the larger natures has not yet been arrived at, but with field-guns it has added largely to accuracy of practice and facility of loading.
BREECH OF A CANNON. The after-end, next the vent or touch-hole. It is the most massive part of a gun; strictly speaking, it is all the solid metal behind the bottom of the bore. Also, the outside angle formed by the knee-timber, the inside of which is the throat.
BREECH-SIGHT. The notch cut on the base ring of a gun.
BREEZE. This word is widely understood as a pleasant zephyr; but among seamen it is usually applied as synonymous with wind in general, whether weak or strong.
BREEZE, Sea or Land. A shifting wind blowing from sea and land alternately at certain hours, and sensibly only near the coasts; they are occasioned by the action of the sun raising the temperature of the land so as to draw an aërial current from sea-ward by day, which is returned as the earth cools at night.
BREEZE, To kick up a. To excite disturbance, and promote a quarrelsome row.
BREEZING UP. The gale freshening.
BREEZO. A toast given by the presiding person at a mess-table; derived from brisée générale.
BREVET. A rank in the army higher than the regimental commission held by an officer, affording him a precedence in garrison and brigade duties. Something approaching this has been attempted afloat, under the term "staff."
BREWING. The appearance of a collection of black and tempestuous clouds, rising gradually from a particular part of the hemisphere, as the forerunner of a storm.
BRICKLAYER'S CLERK. A contemptuous expression for lubberly pretenders to having seen "better days," but who were forced to betake themselves to sea-life.
BRIDGE. A narrow gangway between two hatchways, sometimes termed a bridge. Military bridges to afford a passage across a river for troops, are constructed with boats, pontoons, casks, trusses, trestles, &c. Bridge in steam-vessels is the connection between the paddle-boxes, from which the officer in charge directs the motion of the vessel. Also, the middle part of the fire-bars in a marine boiler, on either side of which the fires are banked. Also, a narrow ridge of rock, sand, or shingle, across the bottom of a channel, so as to occasion a shoal over which the tide ripples. That between Mount Edgecombe and St. Nicholas' Isle, at Plymouth, has occasioned much loss of life.
BRIDGE-ISLET. A portion of land which becomes insular at high-water—as Old Woman's Isle at Bombay, and among others, the celebrated Lindisfarne, thus tidally sung by Scott:—
"The tide did now his flood-mark gain,
And girdled in the saint's domain:
For, with the flow and ebb, its style
Varies from continent to isle;
Dry-shod, o'er sands, twice ev'ry day
The pilgrims to the shrine find way;
Twice every day the waves efface
Of staves and sandall'd feet the trace."
BRIDGE-TRAIN. An equipment for insuring the passage of troops over a river. Pontooners. (See Pontoon.)
BRIDLE. See Mooring-bridle and Bowline-bridle.
BRIDLE-PORT. A square port in the bows of a ship, for taking in mooring bridles. They are also used for guns removed from the port abaft, and required to fire as near a line ahead as possible. They are main-deck chase-ports.
BRIDLES. The upper part of the moorings laid in the queen's harbours, to ride ships or vessels of war. (See Moorings.)
BRIG. A two-masted square-rigged vessel, without a square main-sail, or a trysail-mast abaft the main-mast. This properly constituted the snow, but both classes are latterly blended, and the terms therefore synonymous.
BRIGADE. A party or body of men detached for a special service. A division of troops under the command of a general officer. In artillery organization on land, a brigade is a force usually composed of more than a battery; in the field it commonly consists of two or three batteries; on paper, and for administrative purposes, of eight.
BRIGADE-MAJOR. A staff officer attached to a brigade, and is the channel through which all orders are received from the general and communicated to the troops.
BRIGADE-ORDERS. Those issued by the general officer commanding troops which are brigaded.
BRIGADIER. An officer commanding a brigade, and somewhat the same as commodore for a squadron of ships.
BRIGANDINE. A pliant scale-like coat of mail.
BRIGANTINE. A square-rigged vessel with two masts. A term variously applied by the mariners of different European nations to a peculiar sort of vessel of their own marine. Amongst British seamen this vessel is distinguished by having her main-sail set nearly in the plane of her keel, whereas the main-sails of larger ships are spread athwart the ship's length, and made fast to a yard which hangs parallel to the deck; but in a brig, the foremost side of the main-sail is fastened at different heights to hoops which encircle the main-mast, and slide up and down it as the sail is hoisted or lowered: it is extended by a gaff above and a boom below. Brigantine is a derivative from brig, first applied to passage-boats; in the Celtic meaning "passage over the water." (See Hermaphrodite or Brig Schooner.)
BRIGANTS. Formerly, natives of the northern parts of England.
BRIGDIE. A northern name for the basking shark (Squalus maximus).
BRIGHT LOOK-OUT. A vigilant one.
BRIG-SCHOONER. (See Hermaphrodite and Brigantine, by which, term she is at present classed in law.) Square-rigged on the fore-mast, schooner on the main-mast.
BRILL. The Pleuronectes rhombus, a common fish, allied to, but rather smaller than, the turbot.
BRIM. The margin or bank of a stream, lake, or river.
BRIMSTONE. See Sulphur.
BRINE, or Pickle. Water replete with saline particles, as brine-pickle for salt meat. The briny wave.
BRINE-GAUGE. See Salinometer.
BRINE-PUMPS. When inconvenient to blow off the brine which collects at the bottom of a steamer's boilers, the brine-pump is used for clearing away the deposit.
BRING