We have now indicated the main sources of the ocean-language. As new nations are received into the nautical brotherhood, and as new improvements are made, new terms come in. The whole whaling diction is the contribution of America, or rather of Nantucket, New Bedford, and New London, aided by the islands of the Pacific and the mongrel Spanish ports of the South Seas. Here and there an adventurous genius coins a phrase for the benefit of posterity,--as we once heard a mate order a couple of men to "go forrard and trim the ship's whiskers," to the utter bewilderment of his captain, who, in thirty years' following of the sea, had never heard the martingale chains and stays so designated. But the source of the great body of the sea-language might be marked out on the map by a current flowing out of the Straits of Gibraltar and meeting a similar tide from the Baltic, the two encountering and blending in the North Sea and circling Great Britain, while not forgetting to wash the dykes of Holland as they go. How to distinguish the work of each, in founding the common tongue, is not here our province. It would be difficult to classify the words in nautical use,--impossible here to do more than hint at such a possibility. A specimen or two will show the situation of the present tongue, and the blending process already gone through with. We need not dip for this so far into the tar-bucket as to bother (_nauticè_, "galley") the landsman. We will take terms familiar to all. The three masts of a ship are known as "fore," "main," and "mizzen." Of these, the first is English, the second Norman-French, the third Italian (_mezzano_). To go from masts to sails, we have "duck" from the Swedish _duk_, and "canvas" from the Mediterranean languages,--from the root _canna_, a cane or reed,--thence a cloth of reeds or rushes, a mat-sail,--hence any sail. Of the ends of a ship, "stern" is from the Saxon _stearn_, steering-place; "stem," from the German _stamm_. The whole family of ropes--of which, by the way, it is a common saying, that there are but three to a ship, namely, _bolt_-rope, _bucket_-rope, and _man_-rope, all the rest of the cordage being called by its special name, as _tack_, _sheet_, _clew-line_, _bow-line_, _brace_, _shroud_, or _stay_--the whole family of ropes are akin only by marriage. "Cable" is from the Semitic root _kebel_, to cord, and is the same in all nautical uses. "Hawser"--once written _halser_--is from the Baltic stock,--the rope used for halsing or hauling along; while "painter," the small rope by which a boat is temporarily fastened, is Irish,--from _painter_, a snare. "Sheet" is Italian,--from _scotta_; "brace" French, and "stay" English. "Clew" is Saxon; "garnet" (from _granato_, a fruit) is Italian,--that is, the garnet- or pomegranate-shaped block fastened to the clew or corner of the courses, and hence the rope running through the block. Then we find in the materials used in stopping leaks the same diversity.