256 BOOK OF THE BLACK BASS. 



would be perfect. But impurities and irregularities are unavoidable 

 in even the best yarns, and the operator can not always see these nor 

 take the time to remove all he perceives. Formerly, lines of 600 

 feet were twisted all in one piece, but in so long a line the amount of 

 twist was necessarily uneven in different parts. Hence, it is now 

 considered a better method to make long lines by joining 300-feet 

 lengths by what is known among sailors as the " long splice." 



Hand-made lines are still more perfect than those twisted by any 

 machine. The machine, of course, secures the utmost accuracy in 

 the twist ; but the hand, through the delicate sense of the touch, de- 

 tects imperfections in the thread that are invisible to the operator 

 of the machine. The man who makes the Cuttyhunk and other 

 hand-made lines carries nine bobbins of silk or linen on a frame 

 hanging in front of him. Having fastened the threads in threes to 

 spindles at the head of the walk, he walks slowly backward while the 

 threads pass between his fingers and are twisted into a strand. He 

 feels every thread as it goes, and detects with surprising certainty 

 every bunch, knot, or weak place ; he picks or bites off the bunches, 

 or stops the spindles by pulling a cord at his side, and takes out any 

 defective part of the thread, and joins the ends again by twisting, not 

 by tying them. When the three strands are sufficiently twisted, he 

 ties them together to a little swivel on a string drawing a drag-weight, 

 to allow for the contraction of the line. He passes the three strands 

 through grooves on opposite sides of a cone called the " top," and 

 as he walks back to the head of the walk and moves the top along 

 the strands, the grooves allow the continued twisting of the strands 

 to pass by the " top " and unite them at its apex, while the swivel 

 allows the line to be twisted up by the strands. Thus, although the 

 twist of hand-made lines is not quite so uniform as that of machine- 

 made lines, yet the former are the better in having more perfect 

 threads. 



The braided line is the most perfect of all. No inferior threads are 

 used in its manufacture, and the machines secure a very uniform 

 tension of the strands. The cotton, linen, or silk threads are wound 

 on bobbins that are mounted on a small table. The table is fur- 

 nished with serpentine slots, through which the bobbins travel, and 

 cross one another's course in such a way as to pass now outside, now 

 inside, of one another, and thus weave or braid the strands in a reg- 



