THE USEFUL ARTS

AND

MANUFACTURES OF GREAT BRITAIN.

THE MANUFACTURE OF ROPES AND CORDAGE.

MATERIALS USED FOR ROPES.

THE manufacture of ropes, being one of the useful arts dictated by necessity, seems to have existed from the earliest times, and among all nations. Fibrous materials of various kinds have been chosen for the purpose, such as hemp and flax, tough grass, the husk of the cocoa-nut, the fibres of the wild banana, &c. Among animal substances, strips of ox-hide, horse hair, and wool, have been used; and, among the improvements of modern times, may be mentioned metallic wire, which has been plaited and twisted into ropes of various sizes.

When Europeans first visited South America, they found that the method adopted by the natives for crossing rivers was by a kind of suspensionbridge, called a tarabita, consisting of a cable, made of strips of hide, or fibres of plants, stretched across from a post or tree on one side, to a wheel, or some contrivance, on the other side, for stretching the rope. From this cable was suspended a basket, [23]

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large enough for a man to sit in, and he was pulled across by a smaller rope led to the opposite side.* Humboldt describes a bridge over the river Chambo, in Quito, of a better construction than this. The main ropes, four inches in diameter, were made of the fibres of the American aloe, and were laid over rude timber frames in each bank, and further secured by posts. Upon these ropes the roadway was placed, forming a bridge 131 feet in span. Captain Basil Hall describes a hide rope bridge, 123 feet in span, over the Maypo in Chili. The main ropes are six in number, three on each side of the roadway, properly secured on either bank. From the main ropes are suspended short vertical cords, which carry the horizontal ropes on which the transverse planking of the roadway is placed. The elasticity of the material of this bridge causes so much undulation, that travellers find it necessary to get off their mules and drive them over.

is

The lasso of the Chilian hunter is made by twisting the thongs of an ox-hide. The coir ropes of Ceylon and the Maldive Islands are formed of the fibrous husk of the cocoa-nut; the Manilla rope made from the fibres of a species of wild banana; and the sunn ropes are from those of a leguminous plant (Crotolaria juncea.)†

Captain Parry found that the Esquimaux of Winter Island had excellent ropes made of threads of sinew plaited together; and, if greater strength were required, several of these threads were twisted slackly together; and such ropes seem better adapted to the purposes of the bows, sledges, fishing-tackle, &c. of this ingenious people than our hempen ropes. "One day," says Parry, "in securing some of the gear

* A similar contrivance has been known in India and Central Asia from the earliest times. In the Himalaya Mountains such a bridge is called a J'hoola.

+ Bags and low-priced canvas are prepared from the fibre of this plant.

of a sledge, Okotook broke a part of it, composed of a piece of our white line, and I shall never forget the contemptuous sneer with which he muttered in soliloquy the word 'kabloona!' in token of the inferiority of our materials to his own. It is happy, perhaps, when people possessing so few of the good things of this life can be thus contented with the little allotted them."

In the rigging of ships, thongs of leather formed the usual cordage during many ages; and it is said that up to the present time, in some parts of Scotland, horses are yoked to the plough with strips of the untanned skin of seals, or with strips of the salted hide of cows; while ropes of considerable, length and strength are formed by twisting thongs of leather.

The Romans are said to have practised the art of making ropes from vegetable fibres long before the time of Cæsar, and that after the invasion of Britain by that people, they applied our native rushes, or junci, to a similar purpose. Some writers fancy they see an evidence of this in the term junk, which our sailors apply to old cables and worn-out ropes.

The superiority of the fibres of hemp over those of most other vegetable productions has caused them to be used most extensively in the manufacture of cables, ropes, cords, and canvas,* or sail cloth. Hemp is supposed by some to be a native of India, while others think it is indigenous in Europe. There are records of its growth in Europe for nearly 2,500 Herodotus says: "Hemp grows in the country of the Scythians,† which, except in the

years.

*The word "canvas is said to be a corruption of the Latin name for hemp, cannabis. The Italians call it canape. A finer description of canvas, called huckaback, is made from hemp for towels and common table-cloths. The better sorts (seven-eighths wide) are sometimes preferred to linen for strength and warmth, and the colour improves in wearing, while that of linen deteriorates.

That is, to the north of the Danube, bordering on the Black Sea.

thickness and height of the stalk, very much resembles flax; in the qualities mentioned, however, the hemp is much superior. It grows in a natural The Thracians make

state, and is also cultivated. clothing of it very like linen cloth; nor could any person, without being very well acquainted with the substance, say whether this clothing is made of hemp or flax. A person who has never seen hempen cloth would certainly suppose that this, of which I am speaking, is made of flax." Pliny describes the culture of the hemp-plant in his time, and the processes necessary to obtain its fibres. In like manner, it is mentioned by the earlier writers in various parts of the world, showing how general had the cultivation of this plant become at a very early period in the history of nations.

CULTIVATION OF HEMP, ETC.

HEMP (Cannabis sativa) is stronger and coarser in the fibre than flax, but its uses, culture, and management, are nearly the same. It is an annual plant, commonly rising to the hight of five or six feet; but in some situations considerably higher. The stalk is channelled, and hollow in the inside, and contains a white soft substance, enclosed in a tender tube, composed chiefly of cellular texture, and some longitudinal fibres, which form the reed or boon of the hemp. It is covered with a rough and hairy bark, composed of numerous fibres, extending the whole length of the stem, placed parallel, and united by means of cellular texture. Each of these fibres has been found to consist in itself of a bundle of minute fibrils, twisted spirally, and which admit of being drawn out to a great length after steeping in

water.

The leaves of the hemp plant grow in pairs, on opposite foot-stalks, with two stipules or leaflets at