CANNON. The well-known piece of artillery, mounted in battery on board or on shore, and made either of brass or iron. The principal parts are:—1st. The breech, together with the cascable and its button, called by seamen the pommelion. The breech is of solid metal, from the bottom of the concave cylinder or chamber to the cascable. 2d. The trunnions, which project on each side, and serve to support the cannon, hold it almost in equilibrio. 3d. The bore or caliber, is the interior of the cylinder, wherein the powder and shot are lodged when the cannon is loaded. The entrance of the bore is called the mouth or muzzle. It may be generally described as gradually tapering, with the various modifications of first and second reinforce and swell, to the muzzle or forward end. (See [Gun].)
CANNONADE. The opening and continuance of the fire of artillery on any object attacked. Battering with cannon-shot.
CANNON-PERER. An ancient piece of ordnance used in ships of war for throwing stone shot.
CANNON-PETRONEL. A piece of ordnance with a 6-inch bore which carried a 24-lb. ball.
CANNON, RIFLED. Introduced by Captain Blakely, Sir W. Armstrong, and others.
CANNON ROYAL. A 60-pounder of eight and a half inches bore. (See [Carthoun].)
CANNON-SERPENTINE. An old name for a gun of 7-inches bore.
CANOE. A peculiar boat used by several uncivilized nations, formed of the trunk of a tree hollowed out, and sometimes of several pieces of bark joined together, and again of hide. They are of various sizes, according to the uses for which they are designed, or the countries to which they belong. Some carry sail, but they are commonly rowed with paddles, somewhat resembling a corn-shovel; and instead of rowing with it horizontally, as with an oar, they manage it perpendicularly. In Greenland and Hudson Bay, the Esquimaux limits of America, skin-boats are chiefly in use, under the name of kaiack, oomiak, baidar, &c.
CANOPUS. The lucida of Argo Navis, and a Greenwich star. Also, a city of classical importance, visited by the heroes of the Trojan war, the reputed burial-place of the pilot of Menelaus, &c. But, as some ancient places have been so fortunate as to renew their classical importance in modern times, so this, under the modern name of Abukeir, has received a new "stamp of fate," by its overlooking, like Salamis, the scene of a naval battle, which also led to a decision of the fate of nations. In this bay Nelson, at one blow, destroyed the fleet of the enemy, and cut off the veteran army of France from the shores of Egypt. The Canopian mouth of the Nile was the most westerly of all the branches of that celebrated river.
CANOPY. A light awning over the stern-sheets of a boat.