they are distinguished by their colour, as black, red, white, or chequered; &c.
CANCELLED TICKET. One rendered useless by some subsequent arrangement or clerk's error. In either case the word "cancelled" is to be written across in large characters, and due record made. The corner cut off cancels good character, yet they are a certificate for time.
CANCER. The Crab; the fourth sign of the zodiac, which the sun enters about the 21st of June, and commences the summer solstice.
CANDLE-BARK. A cylindrical tin box for candles.
CANE. The rattan (Calamus rudentum), is extensively used in the East for rigging, rope, and cables. The latter have remained for years at the bottom of the sea uninjured by teredo, or any destructive crustacea. The cables, too, resist any but the sharpest axes, when used to connect logs as booms, to stop the navigation of rivers.
CANEVAS. The old word for hempen canvas; but many races, even the Chinese, make sails entirely of cane. The Americans frequently use cotton, and term that cloth duck. In the islands of the South Pacific it is made from the bark of various trees, grasses, &c.
CAN-HOOKS. They are used to sling a cask by the chimes, or ends of its staves, and are formed by reeving the two ends of a piece of rope or chain through the eyes of two flat hooks, and there making them fast. The tackle is then hooked to the middle of the bight.
CANISTER SHOT. See Case-shot.
CANNIKIN. A small drinking-vessel.
CANNON. The well-known piece of artillery, mounted in battery on board or on shore, and made either of brass or iron. The principal parts are:—1st. The breech, together with the cascable and its button, called by seamen the pommelion. The breech is of solid metal, from the bottom of the concave cylinder or chamber to the cascable. 2d. The trunnions, which project on each side, and serve to support the cannon, hold it almost in equilibrio. 3d. The bore or caliber, is the interior of the cylinder, wherein the powder and shot are lodged when the cannon is loaded. The entrance of the bore is called the mouth or muzzle. It may be generally described as gradually tapering, with the various modifications of first and second reinforce and swell, to the muzzle or forward end. (See Gun.)
CANNONADE. The opening and continuance of the fire of artillery on any object attacked. Battering with cannon-shot.
CANNON-PERER. An ancient piece of ordnance used in ships of war for throwing stone shot.
CANNON-PETRONEL. A piece of ordnance with a 6-inch bore which carried a 24-lb. ball.
CANNON, RIFLED. Introduced by Captain Blakely, Sir W. Armstrong, and others.
CANNON ROYAL. A 60-pounder of eight and a half inches bore. (See Carthoun.)
CANNON-SERPENTINE. An old name for a gun of 7-inches bore.
CANOE. A peculiar boat used by several uncivilized nations, formed of the trunk of a tree hollowed out, and sometimes of several pieces of bark joined together, and again of hide. They are of various sizes, according to the uses for which they are designed, or the countries to which they belong. Some carry sail, but they are commonly rowed with paddles, somewhat resembling a corn-shovel; and instead of rowing with it horizontally, as with an oar, they manage it perpendicularly. In Greenland and Hudson Bay, the Esquimaux limits of America, skin-boats are chiefly in use, under the name of kaiack, oomiak, baidar, &c.
CANOPUS. The lucida of Argo Navis, and a Greenwich star. Also, a city of classical importance, visited by the heroes of the Trojan war, the reputed burial-place of the pilot of Menelaus, &c. But, as some ancient places have been so fortunate as to renew their classical importance in modern times, so this, under the modern name of Abukeir, has received a new "stamp of fate," by its overlooking, like Salamis, the scene of a naval battle, which also led to a decision of the fate of nations. In this bay Nelson, at one blow, destroyed the fleet of the enemy, and cut off the veteran army of France from the shores of Egypt. The Canopian mouth of the Nile was the most westerly of all the branches of that celebrated river.
CANOPY. A light awning over the stern-sheets of a boat.
CANT, To. To turn anything about, or so that it does not stand square. To diverge from a central right line. Cant the boat or ship; i.e. for careening her.
CANT. A cut made in a whale between the neck and the fins, to which the cant-purchase is made fast, for turning the animal round in the operation of flensing.
CANTARA. A watering-place.
CANT-BLOCKS. The large purchase-blocks used by whalers to cant the whales round under the process of flensing.
CANT-BODY. An imaginary figure of that part of a ship's body which forms the shape forward and aft, and whose planes make obtuse angles with the midship line of the ship.
CANTEEN. A small tin vessel for men on service to carry liquids. Also, a small chest containing utensils for an officer's messing. Also, a kind of sutling-house in garrisons.
CANTERA. A Spanish fishing-boat.
CANT-FALLS. See Spike-tackle.
CANT-HOOK. A lever with a hook at one end for heavy articles.
CANTICK-QUOINS. Short three-edged pieces of wood to steady casks from labouring against each other.
CANTING BALLAST. Is when by a sudden gust or stress of weather a ship is thrown so far over that the ballast settles to leeward, and prevents the ship from righting.
CANTING-LIVRE. See Console-bracket.
CANT-LINE. Synonymous with girt-line, as to cant the top over the lowermast-head.
CANTONMENTS. Troops detached and quartered in different towns and villages near each other.
CANT-PURCHASE. This is formed by a block suspended from the mainmast-head, and another block made fast to the cant cut in the whale. (See Cant-blocks.)
CANT-RIBBONS. Those ribbons that do not lie in a horizontal or level direction.
CANT-ROPE. See Four-cant.
CANT-SPAR. A hand-mast pole, fit for making small masts or yards, booms, &c.
CANT-TIMBERS. They derive their name from being canted or raised obliquely from the keel. The upper ends of those on the bow are inclined to the stem, as those in the after-part incline to the stern-post above. In a word, cant-timbers are those which do not stand square with the middle line of the ship. They may be deemed radial bow or stern-timbers.
CANVAS [from cannabis, hemp]. A cloth made of hemp, and used for the sails of ships. It is purchased in bolts, and numbered from 1 to 8, rarely to 9 and 10. Number 1 being the coarsest and strongest, is used for the lower sails, as fore-sail and main-sail in large ships. When a vessel is in motion by means of her sails she is said to be under canvas.
CANVAS-BACK DUCK. An American wild duck (Fuligula valisneria), which takes this name from the colour of the back feathers; much esteemed as a delicacy.
CANVAS-CLIMBER. A word used by Marston for a sailor who goes
