Naval Long Guns
In historical navy usage, a long gun was the standard type of cannon mounted by a sailing vessel, called such to distinguish it from the much shorter carronades. In informal usage, the length was combined with the weight of shot, yielding terms like "long 9s", referring to full length cannons firing a 9-pound round shot.
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Famous quotes containing the words naval and/or long:
“The world was a huge ball then, the universe a might harmony of ellipses, everything moved mysteriously, incalculable distances through the ether.
We used to feel the awe of the distant stars upon us. All that led to was the eighty-eight naval guns, ersatz, and the night air-raids over cities. A magnificent spectacle.
After the collapse of the socialist dream, I came to America.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“I also heard the whooping of the ice in the pond, my great bed-fellow in that part of Concord, as if it were restless in its bed and would fain turn over, were troubled with flatulency and bad dreams; or I was waked by the cracking of the ground by the frost, as if some one had driven a team against my door, and in the morning would find a crack in the earth a quarter of a mile long and a third of an inch wide.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)