jigger. In some
four-masters the masts are named fore, first-main, second-main and
mizzen.

Should the vessel be three-masted, and have yards only on the two
front masts, she is a "bark;" and, by-the-way, the spanker of a bark is
her "mizzen." Should she have yards only, as the foremast, she is a
"barkentine;" should she be a two-master, and have yards on both, she
is a "brig;" should she have yards on the foremast only, she is a
"brigantine."

With regard to this, however, a few words of explanation are necessary.
A century or so ago, a favorite rig was the "snow," pronounced so as to
rhyme to "now." The snow was a bark with a lateen mizzen, or rather a
brig with the "driver," a lateen one, on a jigger mast, just a little
abaft the mainmast.

When this jigger was abolished the sail retained its lateen shape,
got on to the mainmast, and became what we may call a main crossjack,
thereby rendering a square mainsail impossible.

When the crossjack was replaced by a gaff, the larger vessels started
the square mainsail, and became "brigs," while the smaller kept the
spanker as their mainsail, and became "brigantines," so that a genuine
old brigantine is a brig without a square mainsail.

Soon, however, vessels appeared with no yards at all on their mainmasts,
and these were called "hermaphrodite brigs," and were found to be so
handy that they crowded the old brigantines off the sea and took their
name.

But here a qualification must come in. Perhaps you have seen a
two-masted vessel with yards on her foremast and none on her main. She
is a "topsail-schooner." In what does she differ from the brigantine?
The brigantine has a foremast of three spars from the old snow, and a
mainmast of two from the hermaphrodite; the topsail-schooner has both
foremast and mainmast of two spars, and the foresail on a gaff instead
of on a yard, and in other ways is different, but a glance at the
foremast is enough to distinguish her from a brigantine.

A "three-masted schooner" has only lower masts and topmasts, and each
mast is rigged for fore-and-aft sails, but more often than not these
vessels carry yards at the fore and sometimes at the main.

With the "ketch" begins what has been called the mast-and-a-half
division of sailing vessels. The tall mast is the mainmast, the short
mast is the mizzen; some ketches carry square sails on the main, some
carry a topsail on the mizzen--the distinctive mark of the ketch being
that the mizzen