ally.

FRICTION-TUBE. The means of firing a gun most in favour at present in
the British service; ignition is caused by the friction on sudden
withdrawal of a small horizontal metal bar from the detonating priming
in the head of the tube.

FRIDAY. The _dies infaustus_, on which old seamen were desirous of not
getting under weigh, as ill-omened.

FRIEZE-PANEL. The lower part of a gun-port.

FRIEZING. The ornamental carving or painting above the drift-rails, and
likewise round the stern or the bow.

FRIGATE. In the Royal Navy, the next class vessel to a ship of the line;
formerly a light nimble ship built for the purpose of sailing swiftly.
The name was early known in the Mediterranean, and applied to a long
kind of vessel, navigated in that sea, with sails and oars. The English
were the first who appeared on the ocean with these ships, and equipped
them for war as well as for commerce. These vessels mounted from 28 to
60 guns, and made excellent cruisers. Frigate is now apocryphal, being
carried up to 7000 tons. The _donkey-frigate_ was a late invention to
serve patronage, and sprigs of certain houses were educated in them.
They carried 28 guns, carronades, and were about 600 tons burden,
commanded by captains who sometimes found a commander in a sloop which
could blow him out of water.--_Frigate_ is also the familiar name of the
membranous zoophyte, _Physalia pelagica_, or Portuguese man-of-war.

FRIGATE-BIRD. _Tachypetes aquila_, a sea-bird generally seen in the
tropics. It seems to live on the wing, is partially web-footed, and only
visits the land at breeding time.

FRIGATE-BUILT. The disposition of the decks of such merchant ships as
have a descent of some steps from the quarter-deck and forecastle into
the waist, in contradistinction to those whose decks are on a continued
line for the whole length of the ship, which are called galley-built.
(_See_ DECKS.)

FRIGATOON. A Venetian vessel, commonly used in the Adriatic, built with
a square stern, and with only a main-mast, jigger mizen-mast, and
bowsprit. Also applied to a ship sloop-of-war.

FRINGING REEFS. Narrow fringes of coral formation, at a greater or less
distance from the shore, according to the slopes of the land.

FRISKING. The wind freshening.

FRITH. Derived from _fretum maris_, a narrow strait: an arm of the sea
into which a river flows. Synonymous with _firth_ (which see).

FRITTERS. Tendinous fibres of the whale's blubber, running in vari