BALE GOODS. Merchandise packed in large bundles, not in cases or casks.
BALENOT. A porpoise or small whale which frequents the river St. Lawrence.
BALESTILHA. The cross-staff of the early Portuguese navigators.
BALINGER, or Balangha. A kind of small sloop or barge; small vessels of war formerly without forecastles. The name was also given by some of the early voyagers to a large trading-boat of the Philippines and Moluccas.
BALISTES. A fish with mailed skin. File-fish.
BALIZAS. Land and sea marks on Portuguese coasts.
BALK. Straight young trees after they are felled and squared; a beam or timber used for temporary purposes, and under 8 inches square. Balks, of timber of any squared size, as mahogany, intended for planks, or, when very large, for booms or rafts.
BALKAR. A man placed on an eminence, like the ancient Olpis, to watch the movements of shoals of fish. In our early statutes he is called balcor.
BALL. In a general sense, implies a spherical and round body, whether naturally so or formed into that figure by art. In a military view it comprehends all sorts of bullets for fire-arms, from the cannon to the pistol: also those pyrotechnic projectiles for guns or mortars, whether intended to destroy, or only to give light, smoke, or stench.
BALLAHOU. A sharp-floored fast-sailing schooner, with taunt fore-and-aft sails, and no top-sails, common in Bermuda and the West Indies. The fore-mast of the ballahou rakes forward, the main-mast aft.