SMELT [Anglo-Saxon, smylt]. The fry of salmon, samlet, or Salmo eperlanus.
SMEW. The white-headed goosander, Mergus albellus.
SMITER. An archaism for a scimitar. In the legend of Captain Jones, 1659, we are told:
"His fatal smiter thrice aloft he shakes,
And frowns; the sea, and ship, and canvas quakes."
SMITING-LINE. A line by which a yarn-stoppered sail is loosed, without sending men aloft. If well executed, marks the seaman.
SMOKE-BALLS. A pyrotechnical preparation, thrown to short distances from mortars, to choke men out of mines, to conceal movements, &c. They continue to smoke densely from 25 to 30 minutes.
SMOKE-BOX. A part which crosses the whole front of a marine boiler, over the furnace doors; or that part between the end of tubes furthest from the fire-place and bottom of the funnel.
SMOKES. Dense exhalations, mixed with the finer particles of sand, on the Calabar shores and borders of the Great Zahara desert, which prevail in autumn. Also, the indications of inhabitants when coasting new lands. For its meaning in Arctic voyages, see [Vapour].
SMOKE-SAIL. A small sail hoisted against the fore-mast when a ship rides head to wind, to give the smoke of the galley an opportunity of rising, and to prevent its being blown aft on to the quarter-deck.
SMOOTH. A Cornish term applied when the surf abates its fury for a short space. Also, the lee of a ship or of a rock.