hock_.

FILLING A SHIP'S BOTTOM. Implies covering the bottom of a ship with
broad-headed nails, so as to give her a sheathing of iron, to prevent
the worms getting into the wood; sheathing with copper is found
superior, but the former plan is still used for piles in salt-water.

FILLING IN. The replacing a ship's vacant planks opened for ventilation,
when preparing her, from ordinary, for sea.

FILLING POWDER. Taking gunpowder from the casks to fill cartridges, when
lights and fires should be extinguished.

FILLING ROOM. Formerly a small place parted off and lined with lead, in
a man-of-war magazine, wherein powder may be started loosely, in order
to fill cartridges.

FILLINGS. Fir fayed in between the chocks of the head, and wherever
solidity is required, as making the curve fair for the mouldings between
the edges of the fish-front and the sides of the mast, or making the
spaces between the ribs and timbers of a vessel's frame solid.

FILLING-TIMBERS. Blocks of wood introduced in all well-built vessels
between the frames, where the bilge-water may wash.

FILLING-TRANSOM, is just above the deck-transom, securing the ends of
the gun-deck plank and lower-transoms.

FILL THE MAIN-YARD. An order well understood to mean, fill the
main-topsail, after it has been aback, or the ship hove-to.

FILTER. A strainer to free water from its impurities, usually termed by
seamen _drip-stone_ (which see).

FILUM AQUAE. The thread or middle of any river or stream which divides
countries, manors, &c.--_File du mer_, the high tide of the sea.

FIMBLE HEMP; _female hemp_, is that which is chiefly used for domestic
purposes, and therefore falls to the care of the women, as _carl_ or
_male hemp_, which produces the flower, does to the maker of cordage.

"Wife, pluck fro thy seed hemp, the _fimble hemp_ clean,
This looketh more yellow, the other more green;
Use this one for thy spinning, leave Michael the t'other,
For shoe-thread and halter, for rope and such other."--_Tusser._

FIN [Anglo-Saxon, _Finn_]. A native of Finland; those are _Fins_ who
live by fishing. We use the whole for a part, and thus lose the clue
which the Fin affords of a race of fishermen.

FIN-BACK. _See_ FINNER.

FIND, TO. To provide with or furnish.

FINDING. The verdict of a court-martial.

FINDON HADDOCK. The Finnan Haddie, a species of haddock cured by
smoke-drying at Montrose and Aberdeen.

FINE. A term of comparison, as fine shi