222 



Newburyport, Mass., has all her rigging, both standing and 

 running, of cotton cordage. Capt. J. P. Smith, of the ship 

 Walter Scott, gives it as his opinion that it will outlast any 

 rope, whether hemp or Manilla. He is also quite sure the 

 cotton rope is the strongest of the three ropes, as by bending 

 cotton and Manilla ropes of equal sizes together, and heaving 

 on it, at the capstan, the Manilla will always part first. Capt. 

 Brown, of the ship Escort, says that he has used cotton cordage 

 twenty-eight months on the ship Medora, and found it to wear 

 far better, on all accounts, than any other rigging he ever 

 used. In wet weather, likewise, it is more pliable, and in 

 frosty weather it is not so stiff as Manilla. After it is used a 

 few months it becomes smooth and glossy, and works through 

 the blocks much better than any other rope. After the Escort 

 was launched last autumn, at Bristol, Me., she was made fast 

 with two Manilla lines, and three and a-half inch line of cotton 

 cordage seventy fathoms in length, and a very heavy blow 

 came up and the two Manilla lines parted, and the ship rode 

 for more than twenty-four hours, and during the gale, with 

 this line, run out its whole length, alone to hold her ; and the 

 strain was so great that it wore and imbedded its full size into 

 the white oak crosstrees, without breaking a thread in it. It 

 is Captain Brown's opinion, that no Manilla or hemp rope 

 of the same size could have held the ship under like circum- 

 stances. A number of shipmasters' statements, all to the same 

 purport as the above, are published in the Delta, all going to 

 show that cotton cordages, like cotton duck, is destined to come 

 into general use. 



SECTION VI. PAPER FROM THE BARK OF COTTON. 



We called attention some months ago to specimens of 

 hemp made from the bark stripped from cotton stalks and left 



