blems of liberty, expedition, readiness, 
swiftness, and fear, They are more ho- 
nourable bearings than fishes, because they 
participate more of air and fire, the two 
noblest and highest elements, than of earth 
and water. Birds must be borne in coat- 
armour, as is best fitting the propriety of 
their natural actions of going, sitting, stand- 
ing, flying, & c. Birds that are either whole 
footed, or have their feet divided, and yet 
have no talons, are said to be membered ; 
but the cock, and all birds of prey with 
sharp and hooked beaks and talons, for en- 
counter or defence, are termed armed. In 
the blazoning of birds, if their wings be not 
displayed, they are said to be borne close ; 
as, he beareth an eagle, &c. close. 
BIRTH. See Midwifry. 
Birth, or Birthing, in the sea-language, 
a convenient place to moor a ship in ; also 
a due distance observed by ships lying at 
anchor, or under sail ; and a proper place 
aboard fora mess to put their chests, &c. is 
called the birth of that mess. 
BISCUIT, sen, is a sort of bread much 
dried, to make it keep for the service of 
the sea. It was formerly baked twice, or 
ofteper, and prepared six months before 
the embarkation. It will keep good a whole 
year. 
The process of biscuit-baking for the 
British navy is as follows, and it is equally 
simple and ingenious. The meal, and every 
other article, being supplied with much 
certainty and simplicity, large lumps of 
dough, consisting merely of flour and wa- 
ter, are mixed up together; and as the 
quantity is so immense as to preclude, by 
any common process, a possibility of knead- 
ing it, a man manages, or, as it is termed, 
rides a machine, which is called a horse. 
This machine is a long roller, apparently 
about four or five inches in diameter, and 
about seven or eight feet in length. It has 
a play to a certain extension, by means of 
a staple in the wall, to which is inserted a 
kind of eye, making its action like the ma- 
chine by which they cut chaff for horses. 
The lump of dough being placed exactly in 
the centre of a raised platform, the man 
sits upon the end of the machine, and lite- 
rally rides up and down throughout its 
whole circular direction, till the dough is 
equally indented ; and this is repeated till 
it is sufficiently kneaded ; at which times, 
by the different positions of the lines, large 
or small circles are described, according as 
they are near to or distant from the wall, 
BIR 
The dough in this state is handed 
over to a second workman, who slices it 
with a prodigious knife; and it is then 
in a proper state for the use of those 
bakers who attend the oven. These are 
five in number ; and their different depart- 
ments are as well calculated for expedition 
and correctness, as the making of pins or 
other mechanical employments. On each 
side of a large table, where the dough is 
laid, stands a workman ; at a small table 
near the oven stands another; a fourth 
stands by the side of the oven, to receive 
the bread ; and a fifth to supply the peel. 
By this arrangement the oven is as regu- 
larly filled, and the whole exercise per- 
formed in as exact time, as a military evo- 
lution. The man on the further side of the 
large table moulds the dough, having pre- 
viously formed it into small pieces, till it 
has the appearance of muffins, although 
rather thinner, and which he does two to- 
gether, with each hand ; and as fast as he 
accomplishes this task, he delivers his work 
over to the man on the other side of the 
table, who stamps them with a docker on 
both sides with a mark. As he rids himself 
of this work, he throws the biscuits on the 
smaller table next the oven, where stands 
the third workman, whose business is 
merely to separate the^different pieces into 
two, and place them* immediately under 
the hand of him who supplies the oven, 
whose work of throwing, or rather chuck- 
ing, the bread upon the peel, must be so 
exact, that if he looked round for a single 
moment, it is impossible he should perform 
it correctly. The fifth receives the biscuit 
on the peel, and arranges it in the oven ; 
in which duty he is so very expert, that 
though the different pieces are thrown at 
the rate of seventy in a minute, the peel is 
always disengaged in time to receive them 
separately. 
As the oven stands open during the whole 
time of filling it, the biscuits first thrown 
in would be first baked, were there not 
some counteraction to such an inconveni- 
ence. The remedy lies in the Ingenuity of 
the man who forms the pieces of dough, 
and who, by imperceptible degrees, pro- 
portionably diminishes their size, till the 
loss of that time, which is taken up during 
the filling of the oven, has no more effect 
to the disadvantage of one of the biscuits 
than to another. 
So much critical exactness and neat acti- 
vity occur in the exercise of this labour, 
that it is difficult to decide whether the 
