FOXES are made by twisting together three or more rope-yarns by hand, and rubbing them hard with tarred canvass. _Spanish foxes_ are made of one rope-yarn, by unlaying it and laying it up the other way. GASKETS.--Take three or four foxes, middle them, and plait them together into _sennit_. This is done by bringing the two outside foxes alternately over to the middle. The outside ones are laid with the right hand, and the remainder are held and steadied with the left. Having plaited enough for an eye, bring all the parts together, and work them all into one piece, in the same manner. Take out foxes at proper intervals. When finished, one end must be laid up, the other plaited, and the first hauled through. The name _sennit_ is generally given to rope yarns plaited in the same manner with these foxes. Sennit made in this way must have an odd number of parts. FRENCH SENNIT is made with an even number, taken over and under every other time. TO BEND A BUOY-ROPE. Reeve the end through the eye in the other end, put it over one arm of the anchor, and haul taut. Take a hitch over the other arm. Or, take a clove-hitch over the crown, stopping the end to its own part, or to the shank. TO PASS A SHEAR-LASHING.--Middle the lashing and take a good turn round both legs, at the cross. Pass one end up and the other down, around and over the cross, until half of the lashing is expended. Then ride both ends back again on their own parts and knot them in the middle. Frap the first and riding turns together on each side with sennit. CHAPTER VIII. BLOCKS AND PURCHASES. Parts of a block. Made and morticed blocks. Bull's-eye. Dead-eye. Sister-block. Snatch-block. Tail-block. Whip. Gun-tackle. Luff-tackle. Whip-upon-whip. Luff-upon-luff. Watch or tail-tackle. Runner-tackle. Blocks are of two kinds, _made_ and _morticed_. A _made block_ consists of four parts,--the _shell_, or outside; the _sheave_, or wheel on which the rope turns; the _pin_, or axle on which the wheel turns; and the _strap_, either of rope or iron, which encircles the whole, and keeps it in its place. The sheave is generally strengthened by letting in a piece of iron or brass at the centre, called a _bush_. A MORTICED BLOCK is made of a single block of wood, morticed out to receive a sheave. All blocks are single, double, or three-fold, according to the number of sheaves in them. There are some blocks that have no sheaves; as follows: a _bull's-eye_, which is a wooden thimble without a sheave, having a hole through the centre and a groove round it; and a _dead-eye_, which is a solid block of wood made in a circular form, with a groove round it, and three holes bored through it, for the lanyards to reeve through. A SISTER-BLOCK is formed of one solid piece of wood, with two sheaves, one above the other, and between the sheaves a score for the middle seizing. These are oftener without sheaves than with.