ROPE MAKING. 
fishing-line, or whip-cord, to the cable of a 
first-rate ship of war, go by the general 
name of cordage. Ropes are made of every 
Substance that is sufficiently fibrous, flexi- 
ble, and tenacious, but Chiefly of the inner 
barks of plants. The Chinese, and other 
orientals, even make them of the ligneous 
parts of several plants, such as certain bam- 
boos and reeds, the stems of the aloes, the 
fibrous covering of the cocoa nut, the fila- 
ments of the cotton pod, and the leaves of 
some grasses. But the barks of plants are 
the most productive of fibrous matter, fit 
for this manufacture. Those of the linden - 
tree, of the willow, the bramble, the nettle, 
are frequently used ; but' hemp and flax 
are the best ; and of these, the hemp is pre- 
ferred, and employed in all cordage exceed- 
ing the size of a line, and even in many of 
this denomination. Hemp is very various 
in its useful qualities ; the best in Europe 
comes to us through Riga, to which port it 
is brought from very distant places south- 
ward. 
Rope making, is an art of very great im- 
portance ; and there are few that better 
deserve the attention of the intelligent ob- 
server. Hardly any art can be carried on 
without the assistance of the rope-maker. 
Cordage makes the very sinews and mus- 
cles of a ship; and every improvement 
which can be made in its preparation, either 
in respect to strength or pliableness, must 
be of immense service to the mariner, and 
to the commerce and the defence of na- 
tions. The aim of the rope- maker is to 
unite the strength of a great number of fi- 
bres, and the first part of his process is 
spinning of rope-yarns, that is, twisting the 
hemp in the first instance. This is done in 
various ways, and with different machinery, 
according to the nature of the intended 
cordage. We shall confine our description 
to the manufacture of the larger kinds, such 
as are used for the standing and running 
rigging of ships. An alley, or walk, is in- 
closed for the purpose, about tv»’0 hundred 
fathoms long, and of a breadth suited to the 
extent of the manufacture. It is some- 
times covered above. At the upper end of 
this rope-walk is set up the spinning-wheel. 
The band of the wheel goes over several 
rollers, called whirls, turning on pivots in 
brass holes. The pivots at one end come 
through the frame, and terminate in little 
hooks. The wheel, being turned by a 
winch, gives motion in one direction to all 
those whirls. The spinner has a bundle of 
dressed hemp round his waist, with the two 
VOL, V. 
ends meeting before him. The hemp i' 
laid in this bundle in the same wav that wo- 
men spread the flax on the distaff. There 
is great variety in this ; but the general 
aim is to lay the fibres in such a manner, 
that a.s long as the bundle lasts, there may 
be an equal number of the ends at the ex- 
tremity, and that a fibre may never offer it- 
self double, or in a bight. The spinner 
draws out a proper number of fibres, tw ists 
them with his fingers, and having got a suf- 
ficient length detached, he fixes it to the 
hook of a whirl. The wheel is now turned, 
and the skein is twisted, becoming what is 
called rope-yarn, and the spinner walks 
backwards down the rope-walk. The part 
already twisted, draws along witli it more 
fibres out of the bundle. The spinner aids this 
with his fingers, supplying hemp in due pro- 
portion as he walks away from the wheel, 
and taking care that the tibres come in 
equally from both sides of his bundle, and 
that they enter always with their ends, and 
not by the middle, which would double 
them. He should also endeavour to enter 
every fibre at the heart of the yarn. This 
will cause all the fibres to mix equally in 
making it up, and will make the work 
smooth, because one end of each fibre is by 
this means buried among the rest, and the 
other end only lies outward ; and this, in 
passing through the grasp of the spinner, 
who presses it tight with his thumb and 
palm, is also made to lie smooth. A good 
spinner endeavours always to supply the 
hemp in the form of a thin flat skein, with 
his left hand, while his right is employed in 
grasping firmly the yarn that is twining off, 
and in holding it tight froin the whirl, that 
it may not run into loops or kinks. It is 
evident, that both the arrangement of the 
fibres, and the degree of twisting, depend 
on the skill and dexterity of the spinner, 
and that he must be instructed, not by a 
book, but by a master. The degree of 
twist depends on the rate of the wheel’s 
motion, combined with the retrograde walk 
of the spinner. We may suppose him ar- 
rived at the lower end of the walk, or as far 
as is necessary for the intended length of 
his yam. He calls out, and another spinner 
immediately detaches the yarn from the 
hook of the whirl, gives it to another, who 
carries it aside to the reel ; and this second 
spinner attaches his own hemp to the wliirb 
hook. In the mean time, the first spinner 
keeps fast hold of the end of his yarn ; for 
the hemp, being dry, is very elastic, and if 
he were to let it go out of his hand, it 
R r 
