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the main-yard down to the upper deck of the ship, the pieces being taken out crooked, or circular, or strait, according as the grain of the wood ran. It must be remarked, that these claps were not one single explosion, but successive explosions, about the dimensions, as near as we could guess, of small shells, and continued some time cracking after each other; and as the lightening is observed to run not in strait line, but zig zag, so these different explosions might be differently placed in the air; that when they came to take fire and burst, they might take the pieces out of the different sides of the mast as above related.
In great ships the masts are composed of three parts, erected upon one another, the lowermost part is called by its proper name, the middlemost part is called the top-mast, and the uppermost part the top-gallant-mast. The mast, which was here damaged, was the main-mast, or principal mast of the ship, and which stands near the middle; and sometimes the name of main-mast is applied to all the three pieces as they stand erected, and sometimes to the lower piece, or part of the mast only: and when they are distinguished severally, they are called the main-malt, main-top-mast, and main-top-gallant-mast.
Each of these parts of the mast are divided as to length, and have their proper names accordingly; and generally into three parts in common conversation, viz. the head part, which reaches from the upper extremity to the place, where the rigging is fixt; the middle part, which reaches from a little below the rigging, to that place, where the lowermost part be-
