(anchor, Lat. from ἀγκάλη, Greek), a heavy heavy, strong, crooked instrument of iron, dropped from a ship into the bottom of the water, to retain her in a convenient station in a harbour, road, or river.
The most ancient anchors are said to have been of stone; and sometimes of wood, to which a great quantity of lead was usually fixed. In some places, baskets full of stones, and sacks filled with sand, were employed for the same use. All these were let down by cords into the sea, and by their weight stayed the course of the ship. Afterwards they were composed of iron, and furnished with teeth, which, being fastened to the bottom of the sea, prevented the vessel immovable; whence *dentes* and *dentos* are frequently taken for anchors in the Greek and Latin poets. At first there was only one tooth, whence anchors were called *sacra*; but in a short time the second was added by Eupalamus, or Anacharsis, the Scythian philosopher. The anchors with two teeth were called *sacra*, or *sacrae*; and from ancient monuments appear to have been much the same with those used in our days, only the transverse piece of wood upon their handles (the stock) is wanting in all of them. Every ship had several anchors, one of which, surpassing all the rest in bigness and strength, was peculiarly termed *sacra* or *sacra*, and was never used but in extreme danger; whence *sacram anchoram solvere*, is proverbially applied to such as are forced to their last refuge.
The anchors now made are contrived so as to sink into the ground as soon as they reach it, and to hold a great strain before they can be loosed or dislodged from their station. They are composed of a shank, a stock, a ring, and two arms with their flukes. The stock, which is a long piece of timber fixed across the shank, serves to guide the flukes in a direction perpendicular to the surface of the ground; so that one of them sinks into it by its own weight as soon as it falls, and is still preserved steadily in that position by the stock, which, together with the shank, lies flat on the bottom. In this situation it must necessarily sustain a great effort before it can be dragged through the earth horizontally. Indeed this can only be effected by the violence of the wind or tide, or of both of them, sometimes increased by the turbulence of the sea, and acting upon the ship so as to stretch the cable to its utmost tension, which accordingly may dislodge the anchor from its bed, especially if the ground be soft and oozy, or rocky. When the anchor is thus displaced, it is said, in the sea-phrase, to come home.
That the figure of this useful instrument may be more clearly understood, let us suppose a long massive beam of iron erected perpendicularly, b, at the lower end of which are two arms, d e, of equal thickness with the beam (usually called the shank), only that they taper towards the points, which are elevated above the horizontal plane at an angle of thirty degrees, or inclined to the shank at an angle of sixty degrees; on the upper part of each arm (in this position) is a fluke or thick plate of iron, f h, commonly shaped like an isosceles triangle whose base reaches inwards to the middle of the arm. On the upper end of the shank is fixed the stock transversely with the flukes; the stock is a long beam of oak, f i, in two parts, strongly bolted, and hooped together with iron rings. See also No 2. Close above the stock is the ring o, to which the cable is fastened, or bent; the ring is curiously covered with a number of pieces of short rope, which are twisted about it, so as to form a very thick texture or covering called the *puddening*, and used to preserve the cable from being fretted or chafed by the iron.
Every ship has, or ought to have, three principal anchors, with a cable to each, viz. the fleet, *maistrefle-ancere*, (which is the *anchor sacra* of the ancients); the belt bower, *second ancere*; and small bowers, *ancere defensore*, so called from their usual situation on the ship's bows. There are besides smaller anchors, for removing a ship from place to place in a harbour or river, where there may not be room or wind for sailing; these are the stream-anchor, *ancere de tone*; the kedge and grappling, *grapin*: this last, however, is chiefly designed for boats.
At Anchor, the situation of a ship which rides by her anchor in a road or haven, &c. Plate XXII, fig.1. No 3. represents the fore-part of a ship as riding in this situation. See also Buoy-rope.
To slip the Anchor, to draw up the flukes upon the ship's tide after it is casted. See the articles Davit and Fish.
To sheer the ship to her Anchor, is to steer the ship's head towards the place where the anchor lies when they are heaving the cable into the ship; that the cable may thereby enter the hawse with less resistance, and the ship advance towards the anchor with greater facility.
Anchor-Ground is a bottom which is neither too deep, too shallow, nor rocky; as in the first the cable bears too nearly perpendicular, and is thereby apt to jerk the anchor out of the ground; in the second, the ship's bottom is apt to strike at low water, or when the sea runs high, by which she is exposed to the danger of sinking; and in the third, the anchor is liable to hook the broken and pointed ends of rocks, and tear away its flukes, whilst the cable, from the same cause, is constantly in danger of being cut through as it rubs on their edges.
architecture, a sort of carving, somewhat 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 bed-mouldings of the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian cornices, anchors and eggs being carved alternately through the whole building.
Anchors, in heraldry, are emblems of hope, and are taken for such in a spiritual as well as a temporal sense.
Anchorage, in law, is a duty upon ships for the use of the port or harbour where they cast anchor.