GATHERING

Assembling; collecting; used for gathering or concentrating. Gathering board (Bookbinding), a table or board on which signatures are gathered or assembled, to form a book. Knight. -- Gathering coal, a lighted coal left smothered in embers over night, about which kindling wood is gathered in the morning. -- Gathering hoop, a hoop used by coopers to draw together the ends of barrel staves, to allow the hoops to be slipped over them. -- Gathering peat. (a) A piece of peat used as a gathering coal, to preserve a fire. (b) In Scotland, a fiery peat which was sent round by the Borderers as an alarm signal, as the fiery cross was by the Highlanders.