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Cabot, John John Cabot
c.1455-1498. Born in Italy as Giovanni Caboto, he migrated to England and became famous for his 1497 voyage from Bristol, landing on what was likely Newfoundland, the second European to land in America, after Columbus. Returning the following year with 5 vessels, he and his fleet was lost except for one vessel that returned early. Of especial importance was his finding large quantities of cod.
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Calcify calcify; calcification
To harden, because of deposit of calcium salts.
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California Gold Rush
Gold discovered in California in 1848 led to a rush of people to California in 1849, trying to find gold and providing supplies for miners. People from the East Coast wanted the fastest way to California, something that provided a ready market for fast sailing ships which became the clipper ships.
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Cape Cod
A landmark for early European explorers, in 1602, Bartholomew Gosnold named Cape Cod for the large number of cod he found off the Cape, on a voyage looking for trading opportunities and fishing grounds. This name was one of the things that attracted the Pilgrims to the Cape in 1620. Cape Cod has been the site of many wrecks of coasting schooners.
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Cape Horn
The southern tip of South America, the main obstacle to sailing west to the Pacific. The wind blows hard from the west, and vessels could take weeks to get around the Cape, into the Pacific Ocean.
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Cape of Good Hope
The southern tip of Africa. European discovery was by the Portuguese Bartolomeu Dias in 1488. The Dutch East India Company established a base there in 1652 which became a Dutch Colony.
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Capstan
A machine used on board ship to provide mechanical power to raise the anchor, hoist yards, or lift heavy weights. The capstan consists of a cast-steel barrel mounted on a vertical spindle and smallest in diameter around the middle, to allow for the rope to wind up or down as the capstan is turned. At the top of the barrel, capstan bars are fitted into slots (pigeon holes) to allow sailors to turn the capstan.
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Capstan bars
The removable bars at the top of the capstan. Their length varies from 5 to 6.5 feet. Also called handspikes.
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Captain
The chief officer in charge of all aspects of a vessel. Also known as the master.
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Carapace
On a lobster, the part of the exoskeleton or shell that extends from the eyes to the tail covering the thorax where the lungs and digestive organs are located.
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Carding
Cleansing and disentangling fibers prior to spinning, using stiff brush-like surfaces on cards.
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Carpenter ship's carpenter
In merchant sailing days, a petty officer responsible for maintenance of all the ship’s boats, spars, masts, hull, and fixed rigging; also responsible for plugging any shot holes with special wooden plugs. The ship’s carpenter is often nicknamed “Chips.” A carpenter or ship's carpenter can work in a shipyard also, building vessels.
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Cartography
Art and science of making maps and charts, graphic representations of geographic areas.
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Case oil
Kerosene packed in five-gallon cans, two cans to a wooden case.
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Cask barrel
Barrel-shaped vessel made up of staves, headings, and hoops, usually to hold liquids.
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Caulk caulker; caulked
To drive oakum or cotton into the seams of a vessel’s deck or sides, to make it watertight. After the oakum is driven in with a caulking iron or mallet, the seam is “payed” or coated with hot pitch or other compound to prevent the oakum from rotting.
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Caulking iron
Used to drive caulking material into the gaps between the vessel’s planking.
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Caulking mallet mallet
Used to hit the cauling iron, to drive caulking material into gaps between a vessel’s planking.
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Ceiling
The inside planking of a ship.
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Celestial equator equinoctal
The intersection of the plane of Earth's Equator with the celestial sphere marks the celestial equator. It is half way between the north and south celestial poles.
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Celestial navigation
Using the sun, moon, stars, and planets to find your location.
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Celestial sight reduction
In celestial navigation, sight reduction is the process of converting observations of sun, moon, stars or planets into the ship's position. It requires tables and mathematical formulas or other means of solving the problem.
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Celestial sphere
Imaginary sphere on the inside surface of which celestial bodies: Sun, Moon, stars and planets appear to be located. The sphere is so large that the position of the observer on the earth can be taken as the center. It is used to locate the position of celestial bodies on the earth's surface using celestial coordinates: declination, right ascension or sidereal hour angle.
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Cement
Mixture of clay, lime, and other materials ground to a powder and heated together so that the mixture combines (sintering).
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Centerboard schooner
A centerboard is a movable fin or sliding keel made of wood or metal, pivoting in a slot in the bottom of a vessel and contained within a watertight trunk or case. It increases the vessel's area of lateral resistance to the water. It is used mostly in small sailing boats and yachts. A centerboard schooner refers to this device used on a sailing vessel or two or more masts with fore-and-aft sails.
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Chafing gear
Constant motion on ship made rigging and sails wear out when they rubbed or chafed against each other. Various devices such as mats, battens, strips of leather, canvas, baggy-wrinkles (woven bunches of old rope ends), worming, parceling, and service of all kinds in the rigging to prevent wear and tear on the lines.
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Champlain, Samuel de Samuel de Champlain
1567-1635. Between 1603 and 1635, Champlain made 12 voyages to what was to become Canada, establishing it as a French colony, founding Quebec, and exploring up the St. Lawrence River to the Great Lakes. For Maine, he is chiefly known for his 1604-1607 voyage, in which he wintered at St Croix and made the first accurate maps of the New England coast.
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Chart
A nautical map giving navigation information, including: water depth; shoals, rocks, and other dangers; and aids to navigation such as lighthouses, buoys, and beacons. Charts use special symbols and abbreviations to convey information for mariners.
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China
During the period of the China Trade, when Mainers were sailing to ports in China, the Qing (or Ch’ing) Dynasty (1644-1911) was in power. The Qing Dynasty was established by the Manchus in northeastern China, and expanded to surrounding territories of Inner Asia, establishing the Empire of the Great Qing. The Manchus were a semi-nomadic people who conquered the Ming capital of Beijing (Peking) in 1644 and remained there until the Qing Dynasty was overthrown by revolution in 1911 and the last Emperor abdicated in 1912.
Qing leaders were responsible for restrictive policies on books, political writing, and assembly of scholars; they also initiated the “eight-part essay” format for imperial civil service examinations.
Manchu males wore their hair braided into a pigtail known as a queue. During the Qing Dynasty the Manchus forced the Han population to follow this custom. Any male seen without a pigtail outdoors was beheaded.
China called itself the “Celestial Kingdom,” and had been a flourishing civilization for thousands of years before westerners arrived. The Emperor of China was referred to as the “Son of Heaven, Lord of Ten Thousand Years,” and lived in a special area of Peking known as the Forbidden City. The Emperor’s Ministers supervised the Mandarins, who in turn supervised districts within the country. Mandarins were ranked into nine levels, reflected in their clothing. Chinese society was filled with custom and ritual; for example, the few people who were allowed to meet with the Emperor had to first kowtow to him. The kowtow ritual involved the visitor lying prone on the floor and banging his head. This practice was understandably a source of tension between the Chinese and European or American merchants. The Chinese revered their elders, both living and dead. In order to insure the proper respect for oneself in old age, large families with many children were considered a blessing.
The Chinese society was agricultural, organized around growing rice and cultivating tea. There was a wide gap between the standard of living for the wealthy landowners and that of the peasant farmers. Only male children were formally educated. Education consisted of intense study of the Chinese classical writings; calligraphy, poetry, and philosophy were stressed. The highest achievement for a man was to be known as a scholar; merchants and soldiers were held in low esteem. Boys had to take part in a series of written examinations, first on a local level, and then, if these were successfully passed, in the capital city of Peking. There the young man was enclosed in a small cubicle for two days to write the essays for his final exam. These examinations were open to all classes of young men, and it would bring the entire family great honor if the boy passed his exams, which would lead to a position in the civil service.
Girls were not educated. Marriages were arranged at an early age, and couples often did not meet until their wedding day, when the bride was carried in a covered chair to the home of her husband’s family, where she would spend the remainder of her life, rarely venturing outside its walls. The practice of binding the feet of female children was widely practiced in China and, although it originally was a custom of upper class families, by the 17th and 18th centuries, peasant girls began to emulate the practice. By the 19th century it was extremely widespread.
The Chinese traveled around their country by rickshaw, being pushed in a wheelbarrow, or carried in a covered chair. Foreigners, however, were forbidden to use these methods of transportation.
By the beginning of the 20th century, the uneven distribution of wealth, undue foreign influence, and the absence of a strong Emperor led to the end of the Qing dynasty and the Chinese Empire.
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Chinese Art
Paintings done by Chinese artists during the period of the China Trade tended to follow Western styles of portraiture. Early portraits (1785-1820), reflect Neoclassical style; while later portraits, from 1820 to mid-century, are more in the English romantic style. After mid-century, portraits depended on photography, and were usually painted from daguerreotypes or in the style of photographs. Some of these were done by ordinary port painters. One of the earliest known Chinese artists was Spoilum, who worked in Canton from c. 1785 to 1810.
George Chinnery was an English artist, son of a member of the British East India Company, and opium addict, who lived in Canton and Macao from 1825 to 1852. He taught Chinese students and had great influence on Lam Qua, one of the best known of the later Chinese artists of this period. Lam Qua was the first Chinese artist working in the western style to exhibit in America.
Reverse painting on glass was done by Chinese artists by the end of the 18th century. These were usually copies of European and American prints onto sheets of glass, which were then framed European style.
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Chinese fur trade furs for Mandarins
Wealthy Chinese enjoyed lining their robes with furs to keep themselves comfortable in winter. American traders discovered that furs were a good trade item. Traders began to visit the American Pacific Northwest to purchase sea otter furs from the Native Americans living there. The Indians traded for small items, such as buttons, beads, blankets, mirrors, clothing, nails, muskets, molasses, and rum. The fur trade was sometimes dangerous—ships were armed and took precautions about allowing too many Indians to board at one time. The fur trade led to the discovery of the Columbia River, which was named after the merchant ship Columbia that arrived there in 1787. The Columbia and another vessel, the Lady Washington, were the first American vessels to round Cape Horn. John Jacob Astor, a wealthy merchant, founded the city of Astoria in what is now Oregon, in 1811.
Another source of furs was the seal populations around the islands near Cape Horn and off the Patagonian coast—the Falklands, Staten Island, South Georgia, Aucklands, and Masafuera, in the Juan Fernandez Group, where on a neighboring island the original Robinson Crusoe lived from 1790-1812. American crews often lived on one of these remote islands for several years, killing seals and storing their furs. Eventually the seal fisheries were depleted by over harvesting. In 1819, a captain from Stonington, Connecticut, discovered many seals on the South Shetland Islands, and many vessels were sent out from Stonington. Palmer Land, in the Antarctic, was named for its discoverer, Capt. Nathaniel B. Palmer.
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Chip log
Device used in the past on sailing vessels for measuring the rate of speed of the vessel. A quarter circle quadrant of wood, or "chip," fastened to a line, was allowed to run out over the stern, and the amount of line run was measured in time with a half minute sand glass. The sand glass replaced counting the seconds. The line was knotted at specific intervals of 47 feet 3 inches, and each interval was divided into fifths. The length of the knot was derived from the proportion that one hour (3600 seconds) is to 28 seconds as one mile (nautical mile of 6080 feet) is to the length of a knot (47 feet 3 inches). These slightly odd proportions are the result of standardizing on a nautical mile of 6080 degrees and that a 30 second sand glass allowed for turning over the glass. This is the origin of the term knots for the speed of a vessel.
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chondroitin
A chemical compound believed to be useful in the treatment of osteoarthritis.
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Chronometer
A very accurate timepiece hung in gimbals and kept in a special box aboard ship. It is designed to minimize errors due to temperature variation and movement. Any errors are measured and can be factored into navigation solutions. It is set to the time of the Prime Meridian and the difference between it and the time at one's location can be translated into longitude.
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Church, Frederick Frederick Church
1826-1900. Artist of the Hudson River School of landscape painters. He traveled and painted extensively in Maine in 1854-1856. His work in Maine encouraged the development of Maine as a vacationland, as "rusticators" began visiting after his paintings attracted them to come.
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Civil time
Mean solar time with a day beginning at midnight at a fixed geographical location. To avoid confusion and set schedules, countries have adopted time zones, so that the time at a particular location is an average of the time within the zone.
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Clam
A shelled mollusk of which there are a number of species. It has a relatively symmetrical oval shell. The dominant Maine clams are soft shelled and live in the mud in the intertidal zone.
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Clapboard
Narrow board usually thicker at one edge than the other, used for siding on a house.
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Clew
Lower corner of a square sail, or after lower corner of a fore-and-aft sail.
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Clew up
To haul the lower corners of a square sail up to the yard before furling the sail, using clew lines.
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Clipper ship
Fast, narrow-hulled sailing ship with tall masts, many sails, and large crews. Built and used primarily in the mid-19th century.
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Close to the wind
Of a sailing vessel when it sails as near as possible to the wind's direction, sailing to windward. Most modern sailing yachts can sail within 45 degrees of the winds direction. Traditional schooners might sail at 55-65 degrees, and for square riggers 65 degrees would be doing well. Vessels sailing close to the wind are said to be sailing close-hauled.
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Cod Gadus morhua
A food fish of the cool water of the North Atlantic: Gadus morhua. The species that was the major attraction for European fishermen to come to America. The stock is now severely overfished with total collapse and closing of the famous cod fishing grounds off of Newfoundland.
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Cod end
The end of a trawl or towed net in which the caught fish are retained. If the net were a sock, the cod end would be the toe.
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Cod liver oil
Oil made from the liver of cod. It is one of the best sources of Vitamin A and D.
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Cohong
Group of Chinese merchants who paid for a privileged monopoly on foreign trade in the 18th and 19th centuries.
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Collier
Vessel designed specifically to carry coal. Some were designed so that coal could be transferred to other ships directly.
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Columbus, Christopher Christopher Columbus
1451-1506. Italian explorer and navigator. After finding Spanish backing for his plan to find a short way to the Orient, he sailed in 1492 and landed in the Bahamas, then explored a portion of the Caribbean before returning. His voyage opened the path for Europeans. He made three more voyages before his death, frustrated at not finding a way to China and Japan but proud to have found a new world, one unknown to Europeans. As a navigator his dead reckoning was careful and precise, better than any of his companions. While the phenomena of magnetic compass variation was known, Columbus was the first to note the westerly variation, something not observable in Europe and Asia.
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Compass
Instrument which indicates true or magnetic north, enabling the mariner to guide a ship in any direction and to determine the direction of a visible object, such as another ship, heavenly body, or point of land. There are two types, the magnetic compass which depends on the earth’s magnetic field to obtain its directive force and the gyrocompass, which obtains its directive force from the rotation of the earth.
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Compass card
Magnetic marine compasses have the magnets fastened to a circular card which has the directions on it. Traditionally compasses were marked in points of 11 1/4 at every 11 1/4 degrees. The whole card rotates and a mark on the compass housing called a lubber line indicates direction. Until the mid 19th century compasses were dry card, that is the compass card rotated in air on a pivot pin. Edward S. Ritchie developed the first liquid magnetic compass (or wet card compass) in 1862, which solved problems of instability in dry card compasses. Wet card compasses have the card suspended in a liquid, usually a light oil, which has a float in the center to take most of the weight of the card off the pivot. The oil damps or smooths the card motion in a rough sea. Modern compasses are marked in degrees from zero at the north around to 359.
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Compass rose
Outer and two inner circles engraved on a nautical chart, used for laying off courses or bearings. The outer circle represents a true compass measured clockwise and is graduated in degrees.The inner circles are magnetic compasses and include the effect of variation in the given locality. The first one is also graduated in degrees while the inner one is graduated in points of 11 1/2 degree.
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Concrete
Cement mixed with an aggregate, such as sand or gravel, and used as a building material.
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Congregationalism
A form of Protestant church government in which each local religious society is independent and self-governing.
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Conic projection
A map based on the concept of projecting the earth's surface onto a cone, then unrolling the cone onto a plane surface.
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Consulate consul
The offices of the consul, an official appointed to look after the commercial interests and welfare of his country's citizens in a foreign country.
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Continental shelf
Extension of a continent in relatively shallow waters, generally no more than 450 feet deep which slopes at no more than .5 degrees. In 1958 and 1982, nations bordering a continental shelf were given economic rights. For fishing this is a highly productive area often with shallower banks.
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Cook
The person whose occupation is to prepare food for others.
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Coolie
An unskilled laborer, working for very poor wages, usually from Asia.
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Cooper
One who makes casks and barrels for oil, water, wine, or other liquid and solid materials. In Penobscot Bay, coopers made thousands of casks for the lime trade. Also, a dock-worker who takes care of repairs or reconditioning to damaged packages or cases.
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Coordinates
Latitude and longitude information that gives a specific location.
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Copernicus, Nicholas Nicholas Copernicus
1473-1543. Polish astronomer and mathematician who developed and published the view of an Earth that orbited a stationary sun. His book "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) was printed just before his death.
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Cordage
Collectively, all the rope used on a vessel.
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Cordwood
Wood piled or stored in cords. One cord of wood is measured 4’ x 4’ x 8’. Cordwood was used extensively in the lime industry, which needed cordwood for kilns.
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Council for New England
An outgrowth of the Plymouth Company founded in 1606, the Plymouth Council of New England was a company, created led by Sir Ferdinando Gorges, granted a royal charter in 1620 to found colonies in New England from the 40th parallel to the 48th. The Pilgrims of the Plymouth Colony were given a contract or patent for their land from the Council. The Council was dissolved in 1635.
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Crab Rock crab, Green Crab
Crabs are often found in lobster traps. The Rock Crab is Maine's native crab, up to 6 inches shell size while the smaller Green Crab is an invasive Northern European species which had spread all along the Maine coast by 1953. A newer invasive crab species is the Asian Shore Crab which is slightly smaller than the Green Crab. They have been reported as far east as Schoodic.
There is a commericial market for Rock crab, caught chiefly as a byproduct in the lobster fishery.
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Cradle
In ship building and maintenance, the structure that supports a vessel up right on land and in which a vessel can be moved.
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Creole
Language that has evolved from a pidgin but serves as the native language of a speech community.
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Cross staff cross-staff
Early navigational device for measuring altitudes of heavenly bodies, also called a fore-staff, based on an Arab instrument called a Kamel. A cross arm is moved up or down a graduated staff so that when sighting along the staff the user sees the sun and horizon at the ends of the cross arm. The altitude of the sun is then read off the staff. The earliest reference to its use at sea is about 1514.
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Crustacean crustacea
Lobsters, shrimp and crabs all belong to the subphylum of arthropods called crustacea. They have a hard exoskeleton which is shed as the animal grows.
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Customs
Duties, tolls, or imposts imposed by the sovereign law of a country on imports or exports.
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