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ANCELOT—ANCHOR. 
  
  
Francors, a French poet, born February 9, 1794, at 
Havre, where his father was clerk of the Chamber of 
Commerce. The latter being a well-informed gentle- 
man, delighting in verse, early taught his son to recite 
passages from the French poets. A. was from the 
first intended for active life in connection with the 
administration of the navy; and was employed, until 
the revolution of July, in the government service. 
His reputation was first established in 1819 by 
his tragedy of Lowis IX., which was played fifty 
nights 1n succession, and procured him a pension of 
2000 francs from the king. His next piece, 7%he 
Mayor of the Palace (1823), was not so well received. 
In 1824, appeared his Fiesque, a work which exhi- 
bited the great skill of the author in adopting a 
master-piece of Schiller to the French stage. In 
1825, he gave to the world an epic poem in six 
cantos, Marie de Brabant; and in 1827, a clever 
and graceful work, partly prose and partly verse, 
entitled Siz Months ©h Russia ; besides a novel in 
four volumes, The Man of the World. Olga, a 
drama, was published in 1828; and ZElizabeth of 
England in 1829. Both of these works were highly 
successful, though neither met with the brilliant 
reception of Louis IX. In 1834 appeared Les Em- 
prunts auz Salons de Paris. The revolution of July 
deprived him of his pension, and also of his situation 
as librarian of Meudon ; and for the next ten years, 
he was compelled to support himself and family by 
the concoction of numberless vaudevilles, dramas, 
comedies, anecdotes, &c., sometimes of very ques- 
tionable morality. In 1841, the French Academy 
chose him as the successor of Bonald. Shortly after 
appeared his Familiar Letters (Epitres Familieres), a 
collection of satires as remarkable for freshness 
of epigram as for grace of style and richness of 
versification. In 1848, he published La Rue— 
Quincampoix. 
A’s chef-d'ceuvre, Louis IX., is a work of genius; 
the versification is correct, elegant, and harmonious ; 
the manners and characters of the period are deline- 
ated with great fidelity and brilliancy ; the plot is 
skilfully constructed ; and some of the scenes are 
contrived with singular felicity. 
A'NCHOR, an implement for retaining a ship in 
a particular spot, by temporarily chaining it to the 
bed of a sea or river. Many forms of A. were 
made by the ancients; some were merely large 
stones ; others, crooked pieces of wood, weighted to 
make them sink in water. The first ¢ron anchors 
are supposed to have been used by the Greeks. 
As origimally made, the A. had only one fluke or 
arm for penetrating the ground, but a second was 
afterwards added; it had no stock (presently to 
be described), and was, on that account, ill suited 
forinsuring a firm gripe into the ground when lowered. 
The Greek vessels had several anchors, one of which, 
called the ‘sacred A.,” was never let go until the ship 
was in dire distress; something equivalent to this 
was long retained in the English navy, but the 
designation is now dying out. Of whatever form 
and material the ancient anchors were made, they 
were lowered from the ships’ sides by ropes—chain- 
cables being a modern invention. 
The maritime nations of Europe, and the United 
States of America, employ anchors bearing a good 
deal of general resemblance one to another. A large- 
sized modern A., regarded irrespectively of improve- 
ments recently introduced, comprises the following 
parts : The vertical or supporting beam of the A. 
18 the shank, B; at the upper end of it is the ring, » ; 
and just below the ring is a transverse piece called 
the stock, ss; the other extremity is the crown, ¢, 
from which branch out two arms or blades, g, in 
directions nearly at right angles to that of the 
stock ; each arm spreads out into a broad palm or 
232 
  
Jluke, h, the sharp extremity of which is the peak or 
bill, k. All these parts bear special relation to the 
fast-holding of the A. in the 
ground. When the A. is let 
go from the ship’s side, the 
crown first strikes the ground ; 
it then falls over in such a 
manner that one end of the 
stock rests upon the ground; 
and the subsequent movements 
of the ship and the cable cause 
one or other of the flukes (it 
matters not which) to dig verti- 
cally into the ground, and main- 
tain a firm hold. On the firm- 
ness of this gripe depends the 
safe anchoring of the ship; and 
the sizes of all the different parts of the A., as well 
as the curve of the arms and flukes, are calculated 
with direct reference to this condition. 
The number and weights of anchors in British 
ships-of-war are nearly as follow : Men-of-war have 
four anchors—the ‘best bower,’ the ‘small bower,” the 
¢ sheet,” and the ‘spare.” For particular and special 
services, there are also the ‘stream’ and the ‘ kedge.’ 
Smaller vessels have fewer and smaller anchors; and 
the ‘stream’-A. of a large ship may conveniently 
serve as the ‘bower’ for a smaller. There was at 
one time a rough rule in the navy, that the chief 
A. should weigh as many hundred-weight as the ship 
carried guns ; thus, an 80 cwt. A. for an 80-gun ship. 
In the commercial marine there was also a kind of 
rough formula that the chief A. should weigh one- 
twentieth part as many hundred-weight as the ship 
measured in tonnage; thus, a 300-ton ship would 
have an A. of 15 cwt. The weight of an A. 10 feet 
long used to be laid down at 114 cwt., and that of 
an A. 14 feet long, at 30 cwt. It must be borne in 
mind, however, that these numbers and ratios are 
no longer strictly reliable, seeing that new forms 
of A., the use of chain-cables, the introduction of 
steam-navigation, and the building of ships of great 
magnitude, have rendered many old formulas inap- 
plicable at the present day. 
Many important improvements in the shape and 
construction of anchors have been introduced within 
the last few years. Lieutenant Rodgers, to increase 
the strength, without increasing the weight, took out 
a patent for hollow-shanked anchors ; these are not 
strictly hollow, however, for there is a wooden core, 
which is bound to the iron of the shank by iron 
hoops. Mr Pering introduced iron shanks made of 
layers of flat bars, instead of solid iron. The same 
inventor increased the strength of the arms, by 
making them in great part a curved continuation of 
the same pieces of iron which form the shank. 
The most effective novelty, however, is that intro- 
duced under Mr Porter’s patent, about twenty years 
ago, seeing that it is the basis which supports all 
  
Anchor. 
  
Porter’s Anchor at Work. 
the subsequent improvements of any note. The 
arms are pivoted to the stock, instead of being 
rigidly fixed ; and there is a projecting piece, called 
  
  
  
  
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