Block

a pulley or a system of pulleys roc am tating on a_ pintle \ mounted in its frame: q or shel] with its band 4 and strap. There are 4 many kinds of blocks,,* as a pulley block, a fi fiddle block, a fish § block, a fly block, a; heart block, a hook block, ete. A block gf and tackle is the block AS and the rope rove ' through it, for hoistq y ing or obtaining a ope purchase. (Ca Blockade, the act i WH) of surrounding a city gp O&% with a hostile army, a \ or, if it be on the sea i —i } ay oa hostile army around === its landward side, and ships of war in front BLOCK AND of its sea defenses, so TACKLE. as, if po ible, to bs vent supplies of food P and ammunition from entering it by land or water. The object of such an investment is to compel a place too strong or too well defended to be at once captured by a ault, to surrender on account of famine, The investment of a place by sea is to prevent any ships from entering or leaving its harbor. The practice seems to have been introduced by the Dutch about 158+. To break the blockade is to forcibly enter a blockaded port, if not even to compel the naval force investing it to withdraw. To raise a blockade is to desist from blockading a place or to compel the investing force to do so. To run a blockade is to surreptitiously enter or leave a blockaded port at the risk of being captured. As a blockade seriously interferes with the ordinary commercial right of trading with every place, international law carefully lim. its its operation, by certain provision: regarding the rights of nations not interested in the war. - Block Books, before, and for a short time after, the invention ot printing, books printed from wooden blocks each the size of a page and having the matter to be reproduced, whether text or picture, cut in relief on the surface.