ship, where fictitious cargo is embarked and the vessel
insured beyond her value. (_See_ BARRATRY.)

SCUTTLE OR SCUTTLED BUTT. A cask having a square piece sawn out of its
bilge and lashed in a convenient place to hold water for present use.

SCUTTLE-HATCH. A lid or hatch for covering and closing the scuttles when
necessary.

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 mass 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 circumstanced without the
sanction of the admiralty. It claims the fore-shore unless specially
granted by charter otherwise, and the court of vice-admiralty has
jurisdiction as to flotsam and jetsam on the fore-shore. 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 shore. 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 Bri