CORK JACKET, an apparatus to buoy up the body in swimming. It consists of pieces of cork inclosed between two pieces of strong canvas, and is shaped so as to be worn like a jacket, but without arms. It is now almost quite superseded by the air-belt made of waterproof cloth. The cork-jacket appears to be a very old invention; for Plutarch, in his life of Camillus, mentions that the messenger sent by that general to his fellow-citizens when besieged in the capitol, made use of a cork-jacket in swimming across the Tiber, the Gauls being in possession of the bridge. See LIFE-PRESERVERS.