"beril" of a ship?

[Joel S. Berson]

I might have wondered about "barrel" also, but an earlier part of the
sentence explicitly describes a "cask of water [that] broke from its
lashings and maimed sixteen men before it could be staved"; and the
immediately preceding context is "one of the braces gave way with
such a shock, as threw four men over-board, two of whom were lost,
while the knee of a fifth was crushed in a terrible manner between
the beril and the mast".

So the cause seems to be the brace failing; Smollett uses the word
"cask" elsewhere, not "barrel"; and I don't observe quaint spellings
in this Smollett work ("Account of the Expedition Against Carthagena").

Joel

At 4/24/2007 12:52 PM, you wrote:
>Probably a BARREL(?).
>
>--Charlie
>____________________________________________________________
>
>---- Original message ----
> >Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:42:02 -0400
> >From: "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> >Subject: "beril" of a ship?
> >>
> >What, in the 18th century, was a "beril" on a naval vessel?  To
> quote Smollett:  "the knee of a fifth [sailor] was crushed in a
> terrible manner between the beril and the mast".
> >
>
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