I love finding out where sayings origionate from so here's another one for you all. It was necessary to keep a good supply of cannon balls near the cannons on old war ships. But how to prevent them from rolling about the deck was the problem. The best storage method devised was to stack them as a square based pyramid, with one ball on top, resting on four balls, resting on nine balls, which rested on sixteen balls. Thus, a supply of thirty cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon. There was only one problem ------- how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding / rolling from under the others. The solution was a metal plate with sixteen round indentations, called a 'Monkey'. But if this plate was made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it. The solution to the rusting problem, was to make brass Monkeys. Few landlubbers realize that brass shrinks much more and much faster than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature dropped too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannon balls would come right off the Monkey. Thus, it was quite literally cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass Monkey. All this time, you thought that was a vulgar expression didn't you?
Very intresting,, brass monkey, i would of never guessed, i thought it was some kind of statue or something that well,,lets say had big, ummmm, feet. Thanks for clearing up the feet thing. lol.
