SEA. Strictly speaking, _sea_ is the next large division of water after _ocean_, but in its special sense signifies only any large portion of the great ma.s.s of waters almost surrounded by land, as the Black, the White, the Baltic, the China, and the Mediterranean seas, and in a general sense in contradistinction to land. By sailors the word is also variously applied. Thus they say--"We shipped a heavy sea." "There is a great sea on in the offing." "The sea sets to the southward," &c. Hence a ship is said to head the sea when her course is opposed to the direction of the waves.--_A long sea_ implies a uniform motion of long waves, the result of a steady continuance of the wind from nearly the same quarter.--_A short sea_ is a confused motion of the waves when they run irregularly so as frequently to break over a vessel, caused by sudden changes of wind. The law claims for the crown wherever the sea flows to, and there the admiralty has jurisdiction; accordingly, no act can be done, no bridge can span a river so circ.u.mstanced without the sanction of the admiralty. It claims the fore-sh.o.r.e unless specially granted by charter otherwise, and the court of vice-admiralty has jurisdiction as to flotsam and jetsam on the fore-sh.o.r.e. But all crimes are subject to the laws, and are tried by the ordinary courts as within the body of a county, comprehended by the chord between two headlands where the distance does not exceed three miles from the sh.o.r.e. Beyond that limit is "the sea, where high court of admiralty has jurisdiction, but where civil process cannot follow."
SEA-ADDER. The west-country term for the pipe-fish _Syngnathus_. The name is also given to the nest-making stickleback.
SEA-ANCHOR. That which lies towards the offing when a ship is moored.
SEA-ATTORNEY. The ordinary brown and rapacious shark.
SEA-BANK. A work so important that our statutes make it felony, without benefit of clergy, maliciously to cut down any sea-bank whereby lands may be overflowed.
SEA-BEANS. Pods of the acacia tribe shed into the rivers about the Gulf of Mexico, and borne by the stream to the coasts of Great Britain, and even further north.
SEA-BEAR. A name applied to several species of large seals of the genus _Otaria_, found both in the northern and southern hemispheres. They differ from the true seals, especially in the mode in which they use their hind limbs in walking on land.
SEA-BOARD. The line along which the land and water meet, indicating the limit common to both.
SEA-BOAT. A good sea-boat implies any vessel adapted to bear the sea firmly and lively without labouring heavily or straining her masts or rigging. The contrary is called _a bad sea-boat_.
SEA-BORNE. Arrived from a voyage: said of freighted ships also afloat.
SEA-BOTTLE. The pod or vesicle of some species of _sea-wrack_ or _Fucus gigantea_ of Cape Horn and the Straits of Magellan.
SEA-BREEZE. A wind from the sea towards the land. In tropical climates (and sometimes during summer in the temperate zone) as the day advances the land becomes extremely heated by the sun, which causes an ascending current of air, and a wind from the sea rushes in to restore equilibrium. Above the sea-breeze is a counter current, which was clearly shown in Madras, where an aeronaut waited until the sea-breeze had set in to make his ascent, expecting to be blown inland, but after rising to a certain height found himself going out to sea, and in his haste to descend he disordered the machinery, and could not close the valve which allowed the gas to escape, so fell into the sea about three miles from the land, but clung to his balloon and was saved. Also, a cool sea drink.
SEA-BRIEF. A specification of the nature and quant.i.ty of the cargo of a ship, the place whence it comes, and its destination. (_See_ Pa.s.sPORT.)
SEA-CALF. A seal, _Phoca vitulina_.
SEA-CAP. The white drift or breaks of a wave. _White horses_ of trades.
SEA-CARDS. The old name for charts.
SEA-CAT. A name of the wolf-fish, _Anarrhicas lupus_.
SEA-CATGUT. The _Fucus filum_, or sea-thread.
SEA-COAST, OR SEA-BORD. The sh.o.r.e of any country, or that part which is washed by the sea.
SEA COCOA-NUT, OR DOUBLE COCOA-NUT. The fruit of the _Lodoicea seych.e.l.larum_, a handsome palm growing in the Seych.e.l.les Islands. It was once supposed to be produced by a sea-weed, because so often found floating on the sea around.
SEA-COULTER. The puffin or coulter-neb, _Fratercula arctica_.
SEA-COW. One of the names given to the _manatee_ (which see).
SEA-CRAFTS. In ship-building, a term for the scarphed strakes otherwise called _clamps_. For boats, _see_ THWART-CLAMPS.
SEA-CROW. A name on our southern coast for the cormorant.
SEA-CUCKOO. The _Trigla cuculus_, or red gurnard, so called from the unmusical grunt which it emits.
SEA-CUNNY. A steersman in vessels manned with lascars in the East India country trade.
SEA-DEVIL. A name for the _Lophius piscatorius_, or angler, a fish with a large head and thick short body.
SEA-DOG. A name of the common seal.
SEA-DOGG. The meteor called also _stubb_ (which see).
SEA-DRAGON. An early designation of the _stinging-weever_.
SEA-EAGLE. A large ray-fish with a pair of enormous fins stretching out from either side of the body, and a long switch tail, armed with a barbed bone, which forms a dangerous weapon. _Manta_ of the Spaniards.
SEA-EDGE. The boundary between the icy regions of the "north water" and the unfrozen portion of the Arctic Sea.
SEA-EEL. The _conger_ (which see).
SEA-EGG. A general name for the _echinus_, better known to seamen as the _sea-urchin_ (which see).
SEA-FARDINGER. An archaic expression for a seafaring man.
SEA-FISHER. An officer in the household of Edward III.
SEA-FRET. A word used on our northern coasts for the thick heavy mist generated on the ocean, and rolled by the wind upon the land.
SEA-FROG. A name for the _Lophius piscatorius_, or angler.
SEA GATE OR GAIT. A long rolling swell: when two ships are thrown aboard one another by its means, they are said to be in a sea-gate.
SEA-GAUGE. An instrument used by Drs. Hale and Desaguliers to investigate the depth of the sea, by the pressure of air into a tube prepared for the purpose, showing by a mark left by a thin surface of treacle carried on mercury forced up it during the descent into what s.p.a.ce the whole air is compressed, and, consequently, the depth of water by which its weight produced that compression. It is, however, an uncertain and difficult instrument, and superseded by Ericson"s patent, working on the same principle, but pa.s.sing over into another tube the volume of water thus forced in. (_See_ WATER-BOTTLE.)
SEA-GOING. Fit for sea-service abroad.
SEA-GREEN. The colour which in ancient chivalry denoted inconstancy.
SEA-GROCER. A sobriquet for the purser.
SEA-GULL. A well-known bird. When they come in numbers to sh.o.r.e, and make a noise about the coast, or when at sea they alight on ships, sailors consider it a prognostic of a storm. This is an old idea; see Virg. Georg. lib. i., and Plin. lib. xviii. c. 35.
SEA-HARE. _Aplysia_, a molluscous animal.
SEA-HEN. A name of the fish _Trigla lyra_, or _crooner_ (which see).
SEA-HOG. A common name for the porpoise, _Phocna communis_.
SEA-HORSE. A name for the walrus, _Trichecus rosmarus_. Also, the _hippocampus_ (which see).
SEA-ICE. Ice within which there is a separation from the land.
SEAL [from the Anglo-Saxon _seolh_]. The well-known marine piscivorous animal.