in maritime affairs, an extremely useful instrument, serving to retain a ship in its place.

It is a very large and heavy iron instrument, with a double hook at one end, and a ring at the other, by which it is fastened to a cable. It is cast into the bottom of the sea, or rivers; when, taking its hold, it keeps ships from being drawn away by the wind, tide, or currents.

The parts of an anchor are, 1. The ring to which the cable is fastened. 2. The beam or shank, which is the longest part of the anchor. 3. The arm, which is that which runs into the ground. 4. The flouke or fluke, by some called the palm, the broad and peaked part, with its barbs, like the head of an arrow, which fastens into the ground. 5. The stock, a piece of wood fastened to the beam near the ring, serving to guide the fluke, so that it may fall right and fix in the ground.

There are several kinds of anchors: 1. The sheet-anchor, which is the largest, and is never used but in violent storms, to hinder the ship from being driven a-shore. a-shore. 2. The two bowers, which are used for ships to ride in a harbour. 3. The stream anchor. 4. The grapnel. See Stream-anchor, and Grapnel.

The shank of an anchor is to be three times the length of one of its flukes; and a ship of 500 tons hath her sheet-anchor of 2000 weight; and so proportionably for others, smaller or greater. The anchor is said to be a peak, when the cable is perpendicular between the hawse and the anchor. See Hawse.

An anchor is said to come home, when it cannot hold the ship. An anchor is foul, when, by the turning of the ship, the cable is hitched about the fluke. To shoe an anchor, is to fit boards upon the flukes, that it may hold the better in soft ground. When the anchor hangs right up and down by the ship's side, it is said to be a cock-bell, upon the ship's coming to an anchor.

The inhabitants of Ceylon use large stones instead of anchors; and in some other places of the Indies, the anchors are a kind of wooden machines, loaded with stones.

Anchor, in architecture, a sort of carving, something resembling an anchor. It is commonly placed as part of the enrichments of the boultings of capitals of the Tuscan, Doric, and Ionic orders; and also of the boultings of mouldings of the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian cornices; anchors and eggs being carved alternately through the whole building.

Anchor, in heraldry, are emblems of hope, and are taken for such in a spiritual, as well as a temporal sense.