Quote:
Originally Posted by sammyg2
"Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey" does not mean what you might think, it is resportedly traced back to the time of the great navy battles of Great Britain and Spain. A brass monkey was a box that was bolted down next to the cannon. It was square and designed to hold a stacked pyramid of cannon balls, which were often made out of brass.
In extremely cold weather, water would accumulate in the brass monkey and freeze. When the water turned to ice it expanded, causing the cannon balls to fall off the stack and roll around.
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Very close, the brass monkey was a tray that had indentations for the bottom layer of iron cannon ball. The coefficient of expansion for iron and brass being as different as they are, in extremely cold weather the ball and tray (monkey) would deform and essentially the ball would "pop" out of the monkey when the ship rolled.