A BOWLINE BEND.-This is the most usual mode of bending warps, and other long ropes or cables, together. Take a bowline in the end of one rope, pass the end of the other through the bight, and take a bowline with it upon its own standing part. Long lines are sometimes bent together with half-hitches on their own standing parts, instead of bowlines, and the end seized strongly down.

A SHEEP-SHANK. (31.) Make two long bights in a rope, which shall overlay one another. Take a half-hitch over the end of each bight with the standing part which is next to it.

A SELVAGEE.-Lay rope yarns round and round in a bight, and marl them down with spunyarn. These are used for neat block-straps, and as straps to go round a spar for a tackle to hook into, for hoisting.

A MARLINSPIKE HITCH.-Lay the marlinspike upon the seizing stuff, and bring the end over the standing parts so as to form a bight. Lay this bight back over the standing part, putting the marlinspike down through the bight, under the standing part, and up through the bight again.

TO PASS A ROUND SEIZING.-Splice a small eye in the end of the stuff, take the other end round both parts of the rope, and reeve it through the eye. Pass a couple of turns, then take a marlinspike-hitch, and heave them taut. Pass six, eight, or ten turns in the same manner, and heave them taut. Put the end through under these turns and bring it out between the two last turns, or through the eye, and pass five, seven, or nine turns (one less than the lower ones) directly over these as riders. The riders are not hove so taut. Pass the end up through the seizings, and take two cross turns round the whole seizing between the two, passing the end through the last turn, and heaving taut. If the seizing is small cordage, take a wall-knot in the end; if spunyarn, an overhand knot. The cross turns are given up now in nearly all vessels. After the riding turns are passed, the end is carried under the turns, brought out at the other end, and made fast snugly to the standing part of the rigging.

A THROAT SEIZING, where rigging is turned in, is passed and made fast like the preceding, there being no cross

turns. A neat way to pass a throat seizing is to pass the turns rather slack, put a strap upon the end of the rigging, take a handspike or heaver to it and hear it down, driving home the seizing with a mallet and small fid.

STOPPING, is fastening two parts of a rope together as for a round seizing, without a crossing.

NIPPERING, is fastening them by taking turns crosswise between the parts, to jam them; and sometimes with a round turn before each cross. These are called racking Pass riders over these, and fasten the end.

turns.

POINTING.-Unlay the end of a rope and stop it. Take out as many yarns as are necessary, and split each yarn in two, and take two parts of different yarns and twist them up taut into nettles. The rest of the yarns are combed down with a knife. Lay half the nettles down upon the scraped part, the rest back upon the rope, and pass three turns of twine taut round the part where the nettles separate, and hitch the twine, which is called the warp. Lay the nettles backwards and forwards as before, passing the warp each time. The ends may be whipped and snaked with twine, or the nettles hitched over the warp, and hauled taut. The upper seizing must be snaked. If the upper part is too weak for pointing, put in a piece of stick.

SNAKING a seizing is done, by taking the end under and over the outer turns of the seizing alternately, passing over the whole. There should be a marline-hitch at each turn.

GRAFTING.-Unlay the ends of two ropes, and put them together as for a short splice. Make nettles of the strands as before. Pass the warp and nettles belonging to the lower strands along the rope, as in pointing; then the nettles of the upper strands in the same manner. Snake the seizing

at each end.

FOXES are made by twisting together three or more ropeyarns by hand, and rubbing them hard with tarred canvas. Spanish foxes are made of one rope-yarn, by unlaying it and laying it up the other way.

GASKETS. Take three or four foxes, middle them, and plait them together into sennit. This is done by bringing the two outside foxes alternately over to the middle. The

outside ones are laid with the right hand, and the remainder are held and steadied with the left. Having plaited enough for an eye, bring all the parts together, and work them all into one piece, in the same manner. Take out foxes at proper intervals. When finished, one end must be laid up, the other plaited, and the first hauled through. The name sennit is generally given to rope-yarns plaited in the same manner with these foxes. Sennit made in this way must have an odd number of parts. FRENCH SENNIT is made with an even number, taken over and under every other time.

TO BEND A BUOY-ROPE.-Reeve the end through the eye in the other end, put it over one arm of the anchor, and haul taut. Take a hitch over the other arm. Or, take a clove-hitch over the crown, stopping the end to its own part, or to the shank.

TO PASS A SHEAR-LASHING.—Middle the lashing, and take a good turn round both legs, at the cross.

Pass one

end up and the other down, around and over the cross, until half of the lashing is expended. Then ride both ends back again on their own parts and knot them in the middle. Frap the first and riding turns together on each side with sennit.

CHAPTER VIII.

BLOCKS AND PURCHASES.

Parts of a block. Made and morticed blocks. Bull's-eye. Dead-eye. Sisterblock. Snatch-block. Tail-block. Whip. Gun-tackle. Luff-tackle. Whip-upon-whip. Luff-upon-luff. Watch or tail-tackle. Runner-tackle.

BLOCKS are of two kinds, made and morticed. A made block consists of four parts-the shell, or outside: the sheave, or wheel on which the rope turns; the pin, or axle on which the wheel turns; and the strap, either of rope or iron, which encircles the whole, and keeps it in its place. The sheave is generally strengthened by letting in a piece of iron or brass at the centre, called a bush.

A MORTICED BLOCK is made of a single block of wood, morticed out to receive a sheave.

All blocks are single, double, or three-fold, according to the number of sheaves in them.

There are some blocks that have no sheaves, as follows: a bull's-eye, which is a wooden thimble without a sheave, having a hole through the centre, and a groove round it; and a dead-eye, which is a solid block of wood, made in a circular form, with a groove round it, and three holes bored through it, for the lanyards to reeve through.

A SISTER-BLOCK is formed of one solid piece of wood, with two sheaves, one above the other, and between the sheaves a score for the middle seizing. These are oftener without sheaves than with.

SNATCH-BLOCKS are single blocks, with a notch cut in one cheek, just below the sheave, so as to receive the bight of a fall, without the trouble of reeving and unreeving the whole. They are generally iron-bound, and have a hook at one end.

A TAIL-BLOCK is a single block, strapped with an eyesplice, and having a long end left, by which to make the block fast temporarily to the rigging. This tail is usually selvageed, or else the strands are opened and laid up into sennit, as for a gasket.

A TACKLE is a purchase formed by reeving a rope through two or more blocks, for the purpose of hoisting.

A WHIP is the smallest purchase, and is made by a rope rove through one single block.

A GUN-TACKLE PURCHASE is a rope rove through two single blocks and made fast to the strap of the upper block. The parts of all tackles between the fasts and a sheave are called the standing parts; the parts between sheaves are called running parts; and the part upon which you take hold in hoisting is called the full.

A WHIP-UPON-WHIP is where the block of one whip is made fast to the fall of another.

A LUFF-TACKLE PURCHASE is a single and a double block; the end of the rope being fast to the upper part of the single block, and the fall coming from the double block. A lufftackle upon the fall of another luff-tackle is called luff-uponluff.

A WATCH-TACKLE or TAIL-TACKLE is a luff-tackle purchase, with a hook in the end of the single block, and a tail to the upper end of the double block. One of these purchases, with a short fall, is kept on deck, at hand, in merchant vessels, and is used to clap upon standing and running rigging, and to get a strain upon ropes.

A RUNNER-TACKLE is a luff applied to a runner, which is a single rope rove through a single block, hooked to a thimble in the eye of a pennant.

A SINGLE BURTON is composed of two single blocks, with a hook in the bight of the running part. Reeve the end of your rope through the upper block, and make it fast to the strap of the fly-block. Then make fast your hook to the bight of the rope, and reeve the other end through the flyblock for a fall. The hook is made fast by passing the bight of the rope through the eye of the hook, and over the whole.

or

CHAPTER IX.

MAKING AND TAKING IN SAIL.

To loose a sail. To set a course-Topsail-Topgallant sail-Royal-Skysail -Jib-Spanker-Spencer. To take in a course-Topsail-Topgallant sail royal-Skysail-Jib-Spanker. To furl a royal--Topgallant sail-Topsail-Course-Jib. To stow a jib in cloth. To reef a topsail-Course. To turn out reefs. To set a topgallant studdingsail. To take in ditto. To set a topmast studdingsail. To take in ditto. To set a lower studdingsail. To take in ditto.

TO LOOSE A SAIL.-Lay out to the yard-arms and cast off the gaskets, beginning at the outermost and coming in.* When the gaskets are cast off from both yard-arms, then let go the bunt gasket, (and jigger if there be one,) and overhaul the buntlines and leechlines. In loosing a topsail in a gale of wind, it is better to cast off the quarter-gaskets, (except the one which confines the clew,) before those at the yard-arms. Royals and topgallant sails generally have one long gasket to each yard-arm; in which case it is not necessary to go out upon the yard, but the gaskets, after being cast off, should be fastened to the tye by a bowline.

*If only one yard-arm is loosed at a time, let the lee one be oosed first.