66 HUDDART. 



bringing the wonderful power of Watt's steam engine to bear upon 

 this most important article of manufacture. 



Captain Huddart's attention was first drawn towards the subject 

 during a voyage from India to China through the Straits of Sunda, 

 where the ship he commanded was frequently compelled to anchor. 

 When the anchor was weighed, the outer yarns of the cable were 

 often found to be broken, and on opening a piece of cable to find 

 out the cause, Huddart's attention was forcibly drawn to the fact 

 that rope as then manufactured, bore almost the entire strain on the 

 outer yarns of the strands, from the yarns being originally of the 

 same length, and the strand in the process of twisting becoming 

 shortened. He determined to remedy this, and ultimately con- 

 structed a machine which, by means of what he called a register 

 plate, gave to every yarn the same strain, and its proper position in 

 the strand which was compressed through a tube into the desired 

 form. 



Government refusing to take up this valuable invention, a com- 

 pany was formed by Huddart's friends for the manufacture of rope 

 upon his new principle. These gentlemen built a factory at Lime- 

 house, which was established under the name of Huddart & Co. 



Captain Huddart now devoted himself to the further develop- 

 ment of his valuable invention ; he contrived a registering machine 

 whereby the yarns were formed as they came out of the tar-kettle' 

 the tar being kept at the temperature (212-220 Fah.) he found by 

 experiment to be sufficient for the required purpose, without in- 

 juring by too great heat the fibres of the rope. 



He also constructed a laying machine, which gave the same length 

 and twist to every strand, and an uniform angle and pressure to the 

 rope or cable. These improvements involved the manufacture of 

 much beautiful machinery, which was made after Huddart's design 

 and under his own personal superintendance.* 



Captain Huddart lived to an advanced old age, and even in his 

 last illness his disposition to inquire into causes and effects did not 

 forsake him, as his body gradually wasted away, he caused himself 

 to be weighed from time to time, noting thereby the quantity of 

 moisture which escaped by the breath and insensible perspiration. 

 He died at Highbury Terrace, London, at the age of seventy six, 

 and was interred in a vault under St. Martin's Church, in the 

 Strand. Memoir of Capt. Jos. Huddart, by Wm. Cotton, D.C.L. 

 London, 1855. 



* This machinery was constructed by John Rennie. Mechanics' Magazine^ 

 Sept. 20, 1861. 



