782 



UOl'E MAKING. 



\V.H affectionate and kind ; as a friend, sincere and 

 attached; as a man of business, open, punctual, 

 and accurate. In the forwarding of others, he 

 scared neither time, trouble, nor expense ; and he 

 needed only to have merit pointed out to him, that 

 he might exert himself in its behalf. He was not 

 fond of attracting notice, either by speaking in 

 puhlic, or by writing; but the few articles he pub- 

 lished exhibit an ability and luminousness greatly 

 beyond the reach of ordinary minds. 



ROPE MAKING. A single thread of yarn, 

 consisting of fibres twisted together, has a tend- 

 ency to untwist itself, the external parts being 

 strained by extension, and the internal parts by 

 compression; so that the elasticity of all the parts 

 resists, and tends to restore the thread to its natu- 

 ral state. But if two such threads similarly 

 twisted, are retained in contact at a given point of 

 the circumference of each, this point is rendered 

 stationary by the opposition of the equal forces 

 acting in contrary directions, and becomes the 

 centre, round which both threads are carried by 

 the forces which remain ; so that they continue to 

 twist round each other, till the new combination 

 causes a tension, capable of counterbalancing the 

 remaining tension of the original threads. Three, 

 four, or more threads, may be united nearly in the 

 same manner. A strand, as it is called by rope 

 makers, consists of a considerable number of yarns 

 thus twisted together, generally from sixteen to 

 twenty-five; a halser consists of three strands, 

 a shroud of four, and a cable of three halsers or 

 shrouds. Shroud laid cordage has the disadvan- 

 tage of being hollow in the centre, or else of re- 

 quiring a great change of form in the strands to 

 fill up the vacuity; so that in undergoing this 

 change, the cordage stretches, and is unequally 

 strained. The relative position and the compara- 

 tive tension of all the fibres in these complicated 

 combinations are not very easily determined by 

 calculation ; but it is found by experience to be 

 most advantageous for the strength of ropes, to 

 twist the strands, when they are to be compound- 

 ed, in such a direction as to untwist the yarns of 

 which they are formed ; that is, to increase the 

 twist of the strands themselves ; and probably the 

 greatest strength is obtained when the ultimate 

 obliquity of the constituent fibres is least, and the 

 most equable. 



A very strong rope may also be made by twist- 

 ing five or six strands round a seventh, as an axis. 

 In this case, the central strand, or heart, is found 

 after much use to be chafed to oakum. Such 

 ropes are, however, considered unfit for rigging, or 

 for any use in which they are liable to be fre- 

 quently bent 



Ropes are most commonly made of hemp, but 

 various other vegetables are occasionally employed. 

 The Chinese even use woody fibres; and the barks 

 of trees furnish cordage to other nations. 



The first part of the process of rope making by 

 hand, is that of spinning the yarns or threads, 

 which is done in a manner analogous to that of 

 ordinary spinning. The spinner carries a bundle 

 of dressed hemp round his waist ; the two ends of 

 the bundle being assembled in front. Having 

 drawn out a proper number of fibres with his hand, 

 he twists them with his fingers, and fixing this 

 twisted part to the hook of a whirl, which is 

 driven'by a wheel put in motion by an assistant, 

 he walks backwards down the rope-walk, the 

 twisted part always serving to draw out more fibres 



from the bundle round his waist, as in the rtax- 

 pimuug wheel. The spinner takes care tbitt these 

 fibres are equably supplied, and that they alwavs 

 enter the twisted parts by their ends, and never by 

 their middle. As soon as he has reached the ter- 

 mination of the walk, a second spinner takes the 

 yarn off the whirl, and gives it to another person 

 to put upon a reel, while he himself attaches his 

 own hemp to the whirl hook, and proceeds down 

 the walk. When the person at the reel begins to 

 turn, the first spinner, who has completed his yarn, 

 holds it firmly at the end, and advances slowly up 

 the walk, while the reel is turning, keeping it 

 equally tight all the way, till he reaches the reel, 

 where he waits till the second spinner takes his 

 yarn off the whirl hook, and joins it to the end of 

 that of the first spinner, in order that it may fol- 

 low it on the reel. 



The next part of the process previous to tarring, 

 is that of warping the yarns, or stretching them all 

 to one length, which is about 200 fathoms in full- 

 length rope-grounds, and also in putting a slight 

 turn or twist into them. 



The third process in rope making, is the tarring 

 of the yarn. Sometimes the yarns are made to 

 wind off one reel, and, having passed through a 

 vessel of hot tar, are wound upon another, the su- 

 perfluous tar being removed by causing the yarn to 

 pass through a hole surrounded with spongy 

 oakum; but the ordinary method is to tar it in 

 skains or hanks, which are drawn by a capstan with 

 a uniform motion through the tar-kettle. In this 

 process, great care must be taken that the tar is 

 boiling neither too fast nor too slow. Yarn for 

 cables requires more tar than for hawser-laid ropes; 

 and for standing and running rigging, it requires to 

 be merely well covered. Tarred cordage has been 

 found to be weaker than what is untarred, when it 

 is new; but the tarred rope is not so easily injured 

 by immersion in water. 



The last part of the process of rope making, is 

 to lay the cordage. For this purpose two or more 

 yarns are attached at. one end to a hook. The 

 hook is then turned the contrary way from the 

 twist of the individual yarn, and thus forms what 

 is called a strand. Three strands, sometimes four, 

 besides a central one, are then stretched at length, 

 and attached at one end to three contiguous but 

 separate hooks, but at the other end to a single 

 hook ; and the process of combining them together, 

 which is effected by turning the single hook in a 

 direction contrary to that of the other three, con- 

 sists in so regulating the progress of the twists of 

 the strands round their common axis, that the three 

 strands receive separately at their opposite ends 

 just as much twist as is taken out of them by theii 

 twisting the contrary way, in the process of com 

 bination. 



Large ropes are distinguished into two main clas- 

 ses, the cable laid and hawser-laid. The former are 

 composed of nine strands, namely.three great strands, 

 each of these consisting of three smaller secondary 

 strands, which are individually formed with an 

 equal number of primitive yarns. A cable laid 

 rope eight inches in circumference is made up of 

 333 yarns or threads, equally divided among the 

 nine secondary strands. A hawser-laid rope con- 

 sists of only three strands, each composed of a 

 number of primitive yarns, proportioned to the 

 size of the rope; for example, if it be eight inches 

 in circumference, it may have 414 yarns, equally 

 divided among three strands. Thirty fathoms of 



