Ship-Building, are thick pieces of timber incurved into the form of knees, and used to strengthen the fore-part of the ship, where they are placed at different heights directly across the stem, so as to unite it with the bows on each side. The breast-hooks are strongly connected to the stem and hawse-pieces by tree-nails, and by bolts driven from without through the planks and hawse-pieces, and the whole thickness of the breast-hooks, upon the inside of which these bolts are forelocked or clinched upon rings. They are usually about one third thicker than, and twice as long as, the knees of the decks they support.

**Breast-Plate**, in Antiquity, a piece of armour worn to defend the breast; and believed to have been originally formed of hides or hemp, twisted into small cords, but latterly made of brass, iron, or other metals, which are sometimes hardened so as to be proof against the greatest force.

**Breast-Plate**, in Jewish Antiquity, one part of the vestments anciently worn by the high-priests. It was a folded piece of the same rich embroidered stuff of which the ephod was made; and it was set with twelve precious stones, on each of which was engraven the name of one of the tribes. They were set in four rows, three in every row, and were divided from one another by little golden squares or partitions, in which they were set. The names of these stones, and those of the tribes engraven on them, as also of their disposition on the breast-plate, were as follow:

| Sardine | Emerald | Ligure | Beryl | |---------|---------|--------|-------| | Reuben | Judah | Gad | Zebulon |

| Topaz | Sapphire | Agate | Onyx | |--------|----------|-------|------| | Simeon | Dan | Asher | Joseph |

| Carbuncle | Diamond | Amethyst | Jasper | |-----------|---------|-----------|--------| | Levi | Naphthall | Issachar | Benjamin |

This breast-plate was fastened at the four corners, those above to each shoulder by a golden hook or ring at the end of a wreathed chain; and those below to the girdle of the ephod, by two strings or ribbons, which had likewise two rings and hooks. This ornament was never to be severed from the priestly garment; and it was called the Memorial, to remind the high-priest how dear those tribes ought to be to him, whose names he wore on his breast. It is also called the Breast-plate of Judgment, because it had the divine oracle of Urim and Thummim annexed to it.

**Brechin**, a town of Scotland, in the county of Forfar and parish of Brechin, is situated on the face of a hill about the centre of the parish, on the left bank of the River South Esk, which is crossed below the town by a stone bridge of two arches. Brechin consists of one main street running north and south, with several smaller streets. On the south, the town is continued by two suburbs named the Upper and Nether Tenements, which hold in feu of the families of South Esk and Pannure.

This town is said to have been the capital of Pictavia, and the royal seat of the Pictish kings; and the hill of Caterthun, about four miles north of the town, surrounded with an immense coronal of loose stones, is supposed to have been a fortification belonging to that ancient nation. In the earliest record extant, the name of the town is spelt as at present; but as in the days of St Columba there was a noted Druid of the name of "Broichan," probably the town may have derived its appellation from some such source. The Culdees are reported to have had a convent here; and their abbot Leod was witness to the grant made by King David to his new abbey of Dunfermline. In after-times the Culdees gave way to the Mathurines or Red Friars, the ruins of whose house, according to Maitland, are still to be seen in the College or Chandy Wynd.