39 



and which does not seem to have attracted much critical observation. 

 The anchor is one of the most valuable and necessary equipments of a 

 vessel, from the three-decker to the fishing smack ; it is the simplest and 

 most effective of contrivances ; it has taken a place in poetry, in painting, 

 and in sculpture ; it is become an emblem introduced in allegory, and 

 in metaphor, as well as in our every-day conversation. Is it not most 

 strange, then, that we cannot trace the form of an anchor in any sculp- 

 ture, or description by classic authors ? 



The Xi'0o9 Tprjro? and the evval were just heavy stones, diagram e. 

 used, as we see even now in fishing skiffs, for mooring ; 

 but they were not anchors . Yirgil' s expressions of 1 ' dente 

 tenaci, etunco morsu," prove that the ancients had some 

 sort of curved hooks for mooring their vessels ; but it is 

 very doubtful whether the form was at all like that of 

 our anchor ; it seems rather to have been a sort of grap- 

 ple, such as a man-of-war's boats are usually provided 

 with (Diagram E), but which has been quite superseded 

 in our times by the i 'anchor" for vessels of any burthen. 



With one more observation we shall now conclude. 

 Much stress has been laid by some critics on certain tech- 

 nical terms, which they hold to bear upon the arrange- 

 ment of the oars of ancient Galleys, especially the three 

 designations of OaXafiiai, ^ev^irai, and Opavirai. 



JSTow, there is no profession or art more remarkable for all manner of 

 misapplication of terms than that of the seaman. What will the student 

 or professor of five hundred years hence be able to make of the term 

 " forecastle ?" Will he ever guess that in a small merchant vessel it 

 means, not even an elevation, or turret, but a low, dark place, forward, 

 more like a dog kennel than a castle, where the seamen hang their 

 hammocks for sleeping ? Will he ever guess that a " messenger" means a 

 piece of chain ? or that a " sheepshank" is a peculiar knot for shorten- 

 ing a rope, and has no sort of connexion with a leg of mutton ? Will 

 he discover that the " boatswain" has charge of the ship's sails, ropes, 

 and spars, but has little to do with the boats ? And, above all, will he 

 ever imagine what is meant by the term commonly applied to our large 

 class of frigates, about twenty years ago, of " double-banked frigates ?" — 

 a term which was solely applied to vessels with guns placed along the 

 whole upper deck, and without the smallest relation to banks or benches 

 of any kind ? And if these incongruous terms puzzle him, what in the 

 world will he think of a class of vessels, common in our navj^ about 

 thirty years ago, and called by the name of " donkey frigates ?"* 



* Since the above was laid before the Royal Irish Academy, it has come to the know- 

 ledge of the writer, that a very similar question having been recently raised among the 

 learned in Paris, it was resolved by the Emperor, with his usual pi'aetical acuteness, to 

 test the matter by actual experiment. The savans were accordingly placed in coramu- 



