ROPER 



6698 



ROPEWAY 



Roper, MUIOARET (1505-44). 

 Eldest daughter of Sir Thomas 

 More (q.v ). One of the most 

 learned and at the same time one 

 df the most womanly women of her 

 time, beloved of her father and of 

 all who knew her, she, about 1525, 

 married William Roper (1496- 

 1578), her father's biographer. She 

 is said to have secured her father's 

 head after hia execution, and to 

 have preserved it until she herself 

 died. She was buried in Chelsea 

 Church, but the head of Sir 

 Thomas More is believed to have 

 been discovered in June, 1824, in a 

 leaden box in the Roper vault at 

 S. Dunstan's Church, Canterbury. 

 Many of her letters are extant. 

 Her character is reflected in Ann 

 Manning's The Household of Sir 

 Thomas More, a work which 

 purports to be a journal kept by 

 Margaret from her 15th year until 

 her father's death. 



Ropes, ARTHUR REED (b. 1859). 

 British author. Born at Lewisham, 

 Dec. 23, 1859, he was educated at 

 London schools 

 and King's 

 College, Cam- 

 bridge, o t 

 which he be- 

 came a fellow. 

 After some 

 years spent in 

 teaching, he 

 turned his 

 attention to 

 writing. His 

 first work for 

 the stage was a comic opera, Fad- 

 dimir, 1889 ; then followed a steady 

 succession of musical plays for 

 which, under the pseudonym of 

 Adrian Ross, he supplied the lyrics 

 or the libretti, or both. These in- 

 cluded Morocco Bound, 1893, San 

 Toy, 1899, The Merry Widow, 1907, 

 and other popular productions. 



Ropes, who when at Cambridge 

 won the chancellor's medal for 

 English verse, published a volume 

 of Poems, 1884. He also devoted 

 much time to journalism, and his 

 Short History of Europe, 1889, 

 showed him in the role of teacher. 

 Rope Trick. Performance of 

 Indian jugglers. According to the 

 evidence of eye-witnesses, some 

 performers are said to throw a 

 rope up into the air to a great 

 height, from which it hangs to the 

 ground, without any visible sup- 

 port, and a boy climbs up until he 

 disappears from sight, afterwards 

 reappearing. Although many 

 Europeans have Been the trick, 

 it has never been scientifically in- 

 vestigated, and the only hypothesis 

 at all plausible which attempts to 

 account for a seemingly incredible 

 phenomenon is that of collective 

 hallucination. 



Arthur Reed Ropes. 

 British an'hor 



Russell 



Ropeway. Wire cable on which 

 a carriage is supported and run on 

 wheels for the purpose of trans- 

 port. Aerial ropeways are an al- 

 ternative to railway tracks laid on 

 the ground, and in many situa- 

 tions afford the only reasonably 

 cheap method of transporting 

 goods. Strong wire cables, strung 

 on towers, carry the load in speci- 

 ally designed suspended buckets. 



Fig. 1 illustrates a system suit- 

 able for moving very heavy in- 

 dividual loads over long, steep 



Ropeway employed at a Northumberland colliery, 

 capable of transporting 30 tons per hour, showing net- 

 way over the road 



Ropeways, Ltd,, London 



spans. The load is borne on a 

 single fixed cable, and pulled up or 

 let down by an endless hauling 

 rope of smaller diameter. Fig. 2 

 shows a duplication of the first sys- 

 tem. Here the descending load 

 assists to draw up the ascending 

 load. The third system (Fig. 3) 

 employs two fixed carrying ropes 

 and an endless hauling rope travel- 

 ling always in the same direction. 

 On reaching the end of the track, 

 the buckets and their carriers are 

 run on to a shunt rail, emptied, or 



Driving 



filled, and returned to the other 

 track. The carriers automatically 

 let go the hauling rope when enter- 

 ing a shunt, and grip it again when 

 leaving. The jaws of the grips are 

 actuated by the weight of the 

 bucket ; the steeper the incline 

 and the greater the pulh the more 

 tightly do they cling to the rope. 



In the fourth system (Fig. 4) one 

 endless rope, travelling continu- 

 ously in the same direction, sup- 

 ports and moves the carriers, which 

 are either attached rigidly to it or 

 grip it automatic- 

 ally. In the second 

 case the carriers 

 can be shunted at 

 the terminals. 



The last two 

 systems are used 

 for long cable- ways 

 designed to carry 

 a rapid succession 

 of moderate loads. 

 If the ropeway has 

 a sufficient gra- 

 dient, it will work 

 by gravity alone, 

 assuming the 

 loaded carriers to 

 travel downwards. 

 Otherwise power is 

 required to operate 

 it. Very long 

 ropeways are 

 usually divided into sections that 

 are independent of one another, 

 each provided with winding and 

 tension drums, and the carriers are 

 transferred from one section to the 

 next over short level shunt rails. 

 The longest ropeway yet erected 

 connects Chilecito, in Argentina, 

 with Upalungos, a mining station 

 22 m. away. The total vertical 

 rise is 12,500 ft. This ropeway 

 works on the third system, is di- 

 vided into eight sections, and in- 

 cludes spans of 1,770, 1.881, and 



Tension 



Hauling Rope ^ 



Totter 



Tor* 





Ropeway. Systems of aerial cable transport. See text 



