(*anchoria*, Lat. from *ἀκριβες*, Greek), a 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, balkets 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 *clavus* and *dentes* are frequently taken for anchors in the Greek and Latin poets. At first there was only one tooth, whence anchors were called *στρογγύλα*; but in a short time the second was added by Eupalamus, or Anacharsis, the Scythian philosopher. The anchors with two teeth were called *καρυκενίδης*, or *καρυκενίδης*; 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 *μαρα* or *σαρα*, and was never used but in extreme danger; whence *σαρα* 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 flotation. 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 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 maffy beam of iron erected perpendicularly, *b*, at the lower end of which are two arms, *d*, 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 30 degrees, or inclined to the shank at an angle of 60 degrees; on the upper part of each arm (in this position) is a fluke or thick plate of iron, *g*, 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*, in two parts, strongly bolted, and hooped together with iron rings. See also No 2. Closer above the stock is the ring *a*, 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 sheet, *maître d'ancres*, (which is the *anchoria sacra* of the ancients); the best bowers, *second ancre*; and small bowers, *ancre d'afourche*, 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, *ancre de toue*; the kedge and grappling, *grapin*: this last, however, is chiefly designed for boats.

**Method of Making Anchors.** The goodness of the anchor is a point of great importance. Great care is therefore to be taken, that the metal it is made of be neither too soft nor too brittle; the latter rendering it liable to break and the former to straiten.

The shank, arms, and flukes, are first forged separately; then the hole is made at one end of the shank for the ring, which being also previously forged, is put Anchor put into the hole of the shank, and the two ends shut together. After which the arms are shut to the shank, one after the other, and the anchor is finished.

Proof is made of anchors, by raising them to a great height, and then letting them fall again on a kind of iron block placed across for the purpose. To try whether the flukes will turn to the bottom and take hold of the ground, they place the anchor on an even surface, with the end of one of the flukes, and one of the ends of the stock resting on the surface; in case the anchor turns, and the point of the fluke rises upwards, the anchor is good.

In England, France, and Holland, anchors are made of forged iron; but in Spain they are sometimes made of copper, and likewise in several parts of the South Sea.

For the proportions of anchors, according to Manwaring, the shank is to be thrice the length of one of the flukes, and half the length of the beam. According to Aubin, the length of the anchor is to be four tenths of the greatest breadth of the ship; so that the shank, e.g., of an anchor in a vessel 30 feet wide, is to be 12 feet long. When the shank is, for instance, eight feet long, the two arms are to be seven feet long, measuring them according to their curvity. As to the degree of curvity given the arms, there is no rule for it; the workmen are here left to their own discretion.

The latter writer observes, that the anchor of a large heavy vessel is smaller, in proportion, than that of a lesser and lighter one. The reason he gives is, that though the sea employs an equal force against a small vessel as against a great one, supposing the extent of wood upon which the water acts to be equal in both, yet the little vessel, by reason of its superior lightness, does not make so much resistance as the greater; the defect whereof must be supplied by the weight of the anchor.

From these, and other hydrostatic principles, the following table has been formed; wherein is shown, by means of the ship's breadth within, how many feet the beam or shank ought to be long, giving it four-tenths or two-fifths of the ship's breadth within; by which proportion might be regulated the length of the other parts of the anchor. In this table is represented likewise the weight an anchor ought to be for a ship from eight feet broad to 45, increasing by one foot's breadth; supposing that all anchors are similar, or that their weights are as the cubes of the lengths of the shanks.

| Feet | Feet | Pounds | |------|------|--------| | 8 | 3 | 33 | | 9 | 3½ | 47 | | 10 | 4 | 64 | | 11 | 4½ | 84 | | 12 | 4⅔ | 110 | | 13 | 5⅓ | 140 | | 14 | 5⅔ | 175 | | 15 | 6 | 216 | | 16 | 6⅔ | 262 | | 17 | 7⅓ | 314 | | 18 | 7⅔ | 373 | | 19 | 8 | 439 | | 20 | 8⅔ | 512 | | 21 | 9 | 592 |

M. Bouguer, in his Traité de Navire, directs to take the length of the shank in inches, and to divide the cube of it by 1160 for the weight. The reason is obvious; because the quotient of the cube of 201 inches, which is the length of an anchor weighing 7000 lb. divided by the weight, is 1160; and therefore, by the rule of three, this will be a common divisor for the cube of any length, and a single operation will suffice.

The same author gives the following dimensions of the several parts of an anchor. The two arms generally form the arch of a circle, whose centre is three-eighths of the shank from the vertex, or point where it is fixed to the shank; and each arm is equal to the same length, or the radius; so that the two arms together make an arch of 120 degrees; the flukes are half the length of the arms, and their breadth two-fifths of the said length. With respect to the thicknesses, the circumference at the throat, or vertex of the shank, is generally made about the fifth part of its length, and the small end two thirds of the throat; the small end of the arms of the flukes, three-fourths of the circumference of the shank at the throat. These dimensions should be bigger when the iron is of a bad quality, especially if cast iron is used instead of forged iron.

At Anchor, the situation of a ship which rides by her anchor in a road or haven, &c. Plate XXIX, fig. 1. No. 3 represents the fore part of a ship as riding in this situation. See also Buoy-Rope.

To fish the Anchor, to draw up the flukes upon the ship's side after it is catted. See the articles Davit and Fish.

To fish 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, is a sort of carving, somewhat resembling an anchor. It is commonly placed as part of the enrichments of the boulins of capitals of the Tuscan, Doric, and Ionic orders, and also of the boulins 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.