Amazon.com description: Product Description: This is an alphabetical digest of nautical terms. The author, William Henry Smyth (1788-1865) spent his naval career surveying, and his observations and surveys were often in collaboration with French, Austrian and Neapolitan surveyors. The book defines common and not-so-common nautical words and sea terms, and some which, though now obsolete, appear regularly in contemporary books and still enrich the English language. As well as de facto terms dealing with every aspect of ships and the sea - warships, merchant vessels, small craft, seamanship, navigation, weather, naval design, construction and fittings - the author also includes "galley slang", relevant natural history terms and notes on the culinary delights created with birds and fish found during voyages. The book should be a useful tool for all those with an enthusiasm for the sea and ships, or with an interest in the English language in general. Smyth was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society of which he was President from 1849 to 1851. He spent the last seven years of life assembling the "Word-Book" from the enormous quantity of material amassed during his long career, and completed it just before his death.