of tar-water and the drainings of sugar cargo is about the worst perfume known.
BILL. A weapon or implement of war, a pike or halbert of the English infantry. It was formerly carried by sentinels, whence Shakspeare humorously made Dogberry tell the sleepy watchmen to have a care that their bills be not stolen. Also, the point or tapered extremity of the fluke at the arm of an anchor. Also a point of land, of which a familiar instance may be cited in the Bill of Portland.
BILLAT. A name on the coast of Yorkshire for the piltock or coal-fish, when it is a year old.
BILL-BOARDS. Doubling under the fore-channels to the water-line, to protect the planking from the bill of the anchor.
BILLET. The allowance to landlords for quartering men in the royal service; the lodging-money charged by consuls for the same.
BILLET-HEAD. A carved prow bending in and out, contrariwise to the fiddle-head (scroll-head). Also, a round piece of wood fixed in the bow or stern of a whale-boat, about which the line is veered when the whale is struck. Synonymous with bollard.
BILLET-WOOD. Small wood mostly used for dunnage in stowing ships' cargoes, also for fuel, usually sold by the fathom; it is 3 feet 4 inches long, and 71⁄2 inches in compass.
BILL-FISH. See Gar-fish.
BILL-HOOK. A species of hatchet used in wooding a ship, similar to that used by hedgers.
BILL OF EXCHANGE. A means of remitting money from one country to another. The receiver must present it for acceptance to the parties on whom it is drawn without loss of time, he may then claim the money after the date specified on the bill has elapsed.
BILL OF FREEDOM. A full pass for a neutral in time of war.
BILL OF HEALTH. A certificate properly authenticated by the consul, or other proper authority at any port, that the ship comes from a place where no contagious disorder prevails, and that none of the crew, at the time of her departure, were infected with any such distemper. Such constitutes a clean bill of health, in contradistinction to a foul bill.
BILL OF LADING. A memorandum by which the master of a ship acknowledges the receipt of the goods specified therein, and promises to deliver them, in like good condition, to the consignee, or his order. It differs from a charter-party insomuch as it is given only for a single article or more, laden amongst the sundries of a ship's cargo.
BILL OF SALE. A written document by which the property of a vessel, or shares thereof, are transferred to a purchaser.
BILL OF SIGHT, or of View. A warrant for a custom-house officer to examine goods which had been shipped for foreign parts, but not sold there.
BILL OF STORE. A kind of license, or custom-house permission, for re-importing unsold goods from foreign ports duty free, within a specified limit of time.
BILLOWS. The surges of the sea, or waves raised by the wind; a term more in use among poets than seamen.
BILLS. The ends of compass or knee timber.
BILLY BOY OR BOAT. A Humber or east-coast boat, of river-barge build, and a trysail; a bluff-bowed north-country trader, or large one-masted vessel of burden.
BINARY SYSTEM. When two stars forming a double-star are found to revolve about each other.
BIND. A quantity of eels, containing 10 sticks of 25 each.
BINDINGS. In ship-building, a general name for the beams, knees, clamps, water-ways, transoms, and other connecting parts of a ship or vessel.
BINDING-STRAKES. Thick planks on the decks, in midships, between the hatchways. Also the principal strakes of plank in a vessel, especially the sheer-strake and wales, which are bolted to the knees and shelf-pieces.
BING. A heap; an old north-country word for the sea-shore, and sometimes spelled being.
BINGE, To. To rinse, or bull, a cask.
BINGID. An old term for locker.
BINK. See Benk.
BINN. A sort of large locker, with a lid on the top, for containing a vessel's stores: bread-binn, sail-binn, flour-binn, &c.
BINNACLE (formerly Bittacle). It appears evidently to be derived from the French term habittacle, a small habitation, which is now used for the same purpose by the seamen of that nation. The binnacle is a wooden case or box, which contains the compass, and a light to illuminate the compass at night; there are usually three binnacles on the deck of a ship-of-war, two near the helm being designed for the man who steers, weather and lee, and the other amidships, 10 or 12 feet before these, where the quarter-master, who conns the ship, stands when steering, or going with a free wind. (See Conn.)
BINNACLE-LIGHT. The lamp throwing light upon the compass-card.
BINOCLE. A small binocular or two-eyed telescope.
BIOR-LINN. Perhaps the oldest of our terms for boat. (See Birlin.)
BIRD-BOLT. A species of arrow, short and thick, used to kill birds without piercing their skins.
BIRD'S-FOOT SEA-STAR. The Palmipes membranaceus, one of the Asterinidæ, with a flat thin pentagonal body, of a bright scarlet colour.
BIRD'S NEST. A round top at a mast-head for a look-out station. A smaller crow's nest. Chiefly used in whalers, where a constant look-out is kept for whales. (See Edible Bird's Nest.)
BIREMIS. In Roman antiquity, a vessel with two rows of oars.
BIRLIN. A sort of small vessel or galley-boat of the Hebrides; it is fitted with four to eight long oars, but is seldom furnished with sails.
BIRT. A kind of turbot.
BIRTH-MARKS. A ship must not be loaded above her birth-marks, for, says a maritime proverb, a master must know the capacity of his vessel, as well as a rider the strength of his horse.
BISCUIT [i.e. bis coctus, or Fr. bis-cuit]. Bread intended for naval or military expeditions is now simply flour well kneaded, with the least possible quantity of water, into flat cakes, and slowly baked. Pliny calls it panis nauticus; and of the panis militaris, he says that it was heavier by one-third than the grain from which it was made.
BISHOP. A name of the great northern diver (Colymbus glacialis).
BISMER. A name of the stickleback (Gasterosteus spinachia).
BIT. A West Indian silver coin, varying from 4d. to 6d. In America it is 121⁄2 cents, and in the Spanish settlements is equal with the real, or one-eighth of a dollar. It was, in fact, Spanish money cut into bits, and known as "cut-money."
BITE. Is said of the anchor when it holds fast in the ground on reaching it. Also, the hold which the short end of a lever has upon the thing to be lifted. Also, to bite off the top of small-arm cartridges.
BITTER. Any turn of a cable about the bitts is called a bitter. Hence a ship is "brought up to a bitter" when the cable is allowed to run out to that stop.
