In the days when every sailing ship had a cannon for protection, cannons required round iron cannonballs.
The Captain or Master wanted to store the cannonballs so they could be of instant use when needed, yet not roll around on the gun deck. The solution was to stack them up in a square-based pyramid next to the cannon.
The top level of the stack had one ball, the next level down had four, the next had nine, and the next had sixteen, and so on. Four levels would provide a stack of 30 cannonballs. The only real problem was how to keep the bottom level from sliding out from under the weight of the higher levels. To do this, they devised a small brass plate ("brass monkey") with one rounded indentation for each cannonball in the bottom layer.
Brass was used because the cannonballs wouldn't rust to the "brass monkey," but would rust and stick to an iron one. When the temperature falls, however, brass contracts in size faster than iron.
As it got cold on the gun decks, the indentations in the brass monkey would get smaller than the iron cannonballs they were holding. If the temperature got cold enough, the bottom layer would pop out of the indentations, spilling the entire pyramid over the deck.
Thus, it was, quite literally, "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey." A little military trivia that you always thought meant something else.
Just thought everyone would be interested in this...
Ok guys back to your ship corners now and tuck those brass balls and cold monkeys back where they belong. At ease men.You both get a passing mark in your history lesson, creative writing abilities, and I now qualify you to be reading buddies.
You'll going to haf to change the name of this board to something a little warmer. It's 80 degrees today!! and I'm in Va. What the h*ll is going on? Been like this for 2 days. You don't see me complaining. No Sir. Better get my butt on the front porch start drinking some beer.
kellisdomain
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