SNOW, in sea-affairs, is generally the largest of all two-masted vessels employed by Europeans, and the most convenient for navigation.
The sails and rigging on the mainmast and foremast of a snow are exactly similar to those on the same masts in a ship; only that there is a small mast behind the mainmast of the former, which carries a sail nearly resembling the mizen of a ship. The root of the mast is fixed on a block of wood on the quarter-deck abaft the mainmast; and the head of it is attached to the after-top of the maintop. The sail, which is called the trysail, is extended from its mast towards the stern of the vessel.
When the sloops of war are rigged as snows, they are furnished with a horse, which answers the purpose of the trysail-mast, the fore-part of the sail being attached by rings to the said horse, in different parts of its height.