ANCHOR, a heavy instrument of iron, in tended to be dropped from a ship to the sea bottom, to hold her in a desired position. It usually consists of a shank, having at one end a ring, to which the cable is fastened with a cross-piece or stock, and at the other end two arms with blades at the end, called flukes. In one form of anchor the stock is not a cross piece in the sense of lying transversely to the direction of the arms, but lies in the same di rection. In the Homeric times large stones were used for anchors; afterward they are said to have been sometimes of wood loaded with lead. In some places baskets full of stones or sacks filled with sand were employed for the same use. All these were let down by cords into the sea, and by their weight stayed the course of the ship. Among the Greeks of later times anchors were composed of iron. Some times there was only one tooth or fluke, but generally there were two. Anchors with two flukes appear from ancient monuments to have been much the same as those used at present, but the transverse piece of wood fastened to the shank (the stock) is wanting in all of them. Every ship had several anchors, one of which, surpassing all the rest in bigness and strength, was peculiarly termed, in Greek, hiera, and in Latin sacra, and was never used but in extreme danger; whence sacrans ancoram solvere is proverbially applied to such as are forced to their last refuge. When an anchor of the usual form is let fall from the vessel. it generally strikes the bottom with the crown or curve of the arms, and then falls over oz one of the ends of the stock, the arms bins flat on the ground. In this position it canner bite, so that it has to be canted or turned aver till the stock lies flat, and the point of one of the flukes (the bill or peak) rests on the ground. The canting is effected by the vessel pulling at the cable, and the longer the stock and the shorter the arms the less is the force required to perform the operation; for this ro son the stock is always made longer than the arms. The anchor will now either drag er penetrate the ground, the readiness with it does the latter depending on the of the bill, the angle at which the fluke rem on the ground and of course the nature of the bottom. Fortunately the arms used to be rig idly attached to the shank of the anchor; but in 1838 Mr. Porter took out a patent for n
anchor of a new construction (though the prin ciple was known before, however), in which the arms were movable around a pivot at the end of the shank, the plane of their movemect being perpendicular to the direction of the stock. The advantages of this anchor are, that there is almost no possibility of fouling it— that is, of the cable becoming entangled with one of the arms; it cannot lodge on the stock end; it presents no upper fluke to injure the vessel to which it is attached, or others, u shoal water (since the swivel movement en ables the peak of the upper fluke to come close to-the shank when the anchor is fixed); it ir not so liable to break, is more conveniently stowed on board, etc. This form of anchor as improved by Trotman is now largely used in the merchant service. In the navies both of Great Britain and of foreign countries the an chor perhaps most commonly employed is the admiralty anchor with fixed arms, the chief recommendation of which is the excellence of its proportions. Another favorite is Rodgers'. the chief peculiarity of which is its small flukes The inventor claims for this anchor that it holds the ground better than those with large flukes. Another excellent anchor is that patented by a Frenchman named Martin. In his anchor the stock lies in the same direction as the arms, the consequence of which is that when the anchor reaches the ground it in evitably falls flat, with both stock and arms resting on the bottom. The arms are capable of turning in a socket through an angle of 30' in such a manner that when the anchor is lying flat on the ground the flukes of both arms may sink into the ground at an angle of 15°. The weight of the arms and the pull of the vessel cause them to do this. It will be understood that the flukes are not, as in other anchors, perpendicular to the direction of the arms, but lie in the same direction. Besides holding the ground more firmly than any other anchor of equal weight, this anchor has the advantages of being free from liability to foul and easily stowed. The latter circumstance particularly recommends it for use in unmasted turret ships. almost all of which are equipped with it.