HOPE MAKING. 



itself,) is so considerable, that no keep- 

 ing will make the fibres retain this con- 

 stiained position. 



The end of a rope-yarn being thrown 

 loose, it will immediately untwist, and 

 this with considerable force and speed. 

 It would, therefore, be a fruitless attempt 

 to twist two such yarns together; yet the 

 ingenuity of man has contrived to make 

 use of this very tendency to untwist not 

 only to counteract itself, but even to pro- 

 duce another and a permanent twist, 

 which requires force to undo it, and 

 which will recover itself when this force 

 is removed. Every person must recol- 

 lect, that when he had twisted a pack- 

 thread very hard with his fingers between 

 his two hands, if he slackens the thread 

 by bringing his hands nearer together, the 

 packthread will immediately curl up, 

 running into loops or kinks, and will 

 even twist itself into a neat and firm 

 cord. The component parts of a rope 

 are called strands, and the operation of 

 uniting them with a permanent twist is 

 called laying or closing, the latter term 

 being chiefly appropriated to cables and 

 other very large cordage. 



The process for laying or closing large 

 cordage is this : the strands of which the 

 rope is composed consist of many yarns, 

 and require a considerable degree of har- 

 dening. This cannot be done by a whirl 

 driven by a wheel-band ; it requires the 

 power of a crank turned by the hand. 

 The strands, when properly hardened, 

 become very stir!', and when bent round 

 the top, are not able to transmit force 

 enough for laying the heavy and unpliant 

 rope which forms beyond it. The elastic 

 twist of the hardened strands must, there- 

 fore, be assisted by an external force. All 

 this requires a different machinery and a 

 different process. At the upper end of 

 the walk is fixed up the tackle-board, 

 this consists of a strong oaken plunk, 

 called a breast board, having three or 

 more holes in it, fitted with brass OP iron 

 plates. Into these are put iron cranks, 

 called heavers, which have hooks or fore- 

 locks, and keys, on the ends of their spin- 

 dles. They are placed at such a distance 

 from each other, that the workmen do 

 not interfere with each other while turn- 

 ing them round. This breast board is 

 fixed to the top of strong posts, well se- 

 cured by struts, or braces, facing the 

 lower end of the walk. At the lower end 

 is another breast board, fixed to the up- 

 right post of a sledge, which may be 

 loaded with stones or other weights. Si- 

 milar cranks are placed in the holes of 



this breast board ; the whole goes by {he 

 name of the sledge. The top necessary for 

 closing large cord^e is too heavy to be 

 held in the hand ; h therefore has a long- 

 staff, which has a truck on the end : th;3 

 rests on the ground, hut even this is not 

 enough in laying great cables. The top 

 must be supported on a carriage, where 

 it must lie very steady, and it needs at- 

 tendance, because the master workman 

 has sufficient employment in attending to 

 the manner in which the strands close 

 behind the top, and in helping them by 

 various methods. The top is therefore^ 

 fixed to the carriage, by lashing its staff* 

 to the two uprights posts. A piece of 

 soft rope, or strap, is attached to the han- 

 dle of tiie top by the middle, and its two 

 ends are brought back and wrapped se- 

 veral times tight round the rope, in the 

 direction of its twist, and bound down. 

 This greatly assists the laying of the rope 

 by its friction, which both keeps the top 

 from flying too fur from the point of union 

 of the strands, and brings the strands 

 more regularly into their places. The 

 first operation is warping the yarns. At 

 each end of the walk are frames called 

 warping frames, which carry a great num- 

 ber of reels or winches, filled with rope- 

 yarn. The foreman of the walk takes off 

 a yarn end from each, till he has made 

 up the number necessary for his rope or 

 strand, and bringing the ends together, 

 he passes the whole through an iron ring 

 fixed to the top of a stake driven into the 

 groun;!, and draws them through : then 

 a knot is tied on the end of the bundle, 

 and a workman pulls it through this ring, 

 till the intended length is drawn off the 

 reels. The end is made fast at the bot- 

 tom of the walk, or at the sledge, and the 

 foreman comes back along the skein of 

 yarns, to see that none are hanging 

 slacker than the rest. He takes up in 

 his hand such as are slack, and draws 

 them tight, keeping them so till he 

 reaches the upper end, where he cuts 

 the yarns to a length, again adjusts their 

 tightness, and joins them altogether in a 

 knot, to which he fixes the "hook of a 

 tackle, the other block of which is fixed 

 to a firm post, called the warping post. 

 The skein is well stretched by this 'tackle, 

 and then separated into its different 

 strands. Each of these is knotted apart 

 at both ends. The knots at their upper 

 ends are made fast to the hooks of the 

 cranks in the tackle-board, and those at 

 the lower ends are fastened to the cranks 

 in the sledge. The sledge itself is kept 

 in its place by a tackle, by which the 





