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Read Ebook: The story of rope by Plymouth Cordage Company
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Ebook has 254 lines and 18562 words, and 6 pages
Track and warehouse facilities, Plymouth Cordage Company 57
Stacking Manila fiber in warehouse 58
Trucking Manila fiber into warehouse 59
Sisal fiber being transferred from warehouse to mill 60
No. 2 tar house, Plymouth Cordage Company 61
No. 3 mill, Plymouth Cordage Company 62
Preparation room, No. 3 mill, Plymouth Cordage Company 64
Lubricating oil mixing room, Plymouth Cordage Company 65
Formation of sliver on first breaker 66
Reducing size of sliver on preparation machines 67
Draw frame machines 68
Plymouth Cordage Company factory in early days and today 70
Spinning machine of early nineteenth century 72
Modern spinning machine 73
Spinning room, No. 1 mill, Plymouth Cordage Company 74
Spinning room, No. 3 mill, Plymouth Cordage Company 75
Tar storage and handling equipment, Plymouth Cordage Company 76
Tarring of rope yarns 78
Ropewalk manufacturing processes 80
Interior of ropewalk, Plymouth Cordage Company 82
Sixteen-inch towline with eye-splice 83
Lathyarn and tie rope machines, Plymouth Cordage Company 84
Rope-making machinery, Plymouth Cordage Company 87
Removing reel from forming machine 89
Compound laying-machine, four-strand type 90
Shipping platform, Plymouth Cordage Company 92
Part I
THE ROPEWALK
In that building, long and low, With its windows all a-row, Like the port-holes of a hulk, Human spiders spin and spin, Backward down their threads so thin Dropping, each a hempen bulk.
At the end, an open door; Squares of sunshine on the floor Light the long and dusky lane; And the whirring of a wheel, Dull and drowsy, makes me feel All its spokes are in my brain.
Two fair maidens in a swing, Like white doves upon the wing, First before my vision pass; Laughing, as their gentle hands Closely clasp the twisted strands, At their shadow on the grass.
Then a booth of mountebanks, With its smell of tan and planks, And a girl poised high in air On a cord, in spangled dress, With a faded loveliness, And a weary look of care.
Then a homestead among farms, And a woman with bare arms Drawing water from a well; As the bucket mounts apace, With it mounts her own fair face, As at some magician's spell.
Then an old man in a tower, Ringing loud the noontide hour, While the rope coils round and round Like a serpent at his feet, And again, in swift retreat, Nearly lifts him from the ground.
Then within a prison-yard, Faces fixed, and stern, and hard, Laughter and indecent mirth; Ah! it is the gallows-tree! Breath of Christian charity, Blow, and sweep it from the earth!
Then a schoolboy, with his kite Gleaming in a sky of light, And an eager, upward look; Steeds pursued through lane and field; Fowlers with their snares concealed; And an angler by a brook.
Ships rejoicing in the breeze, Wrecks that float o'er unknown seas, Anchors dragged through faithless sand; Sea-fog drifting overhead, And, with lessening line and lead, Sailors feeling for the land.
All these scenes do I behold, These, and many left untold, In that building long and low; While the wheel goes round and round, With a drowsy, dreamy sound, And the spinners backward go.
--LONGFELLOW.
ANCIENT, MEDIAEVAL AND TRIBAL ROPE-MAKING
How many people have ever given a thought to the question of where rope comes from and how it is made, or realize what a variety of uses it is put to, and how dependent we are upon it in many of the everyday affairs of life? But let us suppose for a moment that the world were suddenly deprived of its supply of this very commonplace material, and of its smaller relatives, cords and twine. We should then begin to realize the importance of a seemingly unimportant thing, and to appreciate the difficulty in getting along without it.
Longfellow, in his poem "The Ropewalk," which we have printed, shows that he recognized the scope of the usefulness of rope, and appreciated the romance and pathos connected with the use of a seemingly prosaic article; for in his brief catalogue of the uses of rope which passed in pictured procession through his mind, as he stood in the ropewalk and came under the influence of the drowsy hum and whir of the spinners' wheels, he succeeded in covering a good share of the changing phases in the drama of human life: childhood in its swing, happy, without a care; the life of the sailor, which, with its heroism, its romance, its courageous meeting of danger or disaster, has always been the subject of verse and story; the pathetic picture of the faded beauty on the tight rope; and the tragic scene of the criminal dying upon the gallows.
"All these and many left untold," the poet says, and when we once begin to let our thoughts run we find uses almost innumerable, on sea and land, to which our rope is put. Then, if we allow ourselves to come more and more under the drowsy spell of the wheels, we wonder how long all these things have been going on, and when, where and how the first rope was made and used.
A little investigation shows us that the use of rope is older than history itself. Back beyond the time of any authentic record of events, beyond even the range of tradition, the first rope-makers did their work.
In his very earliest days man must have had something to serve for cords or lines,--strips of hide or of bark, pliant reeds and rushes, withes of tough woods, fibrous roots, hair of animals,--then, as the need arose for longer, larger and stronger lines, it was met, as human ingenuity developed, by twisting a number of some of these elements together and forming a rope or cord. Just who was the prehistoric genius that first performed this operation, or in what part of the world he lived, we have no means of knowing.
Certain it is, according to the best authority, that not only were the ancient civilized nations accomplished rope-makers, but savage tribes in all parts of the world, for unknown thousands of years, have been able to make ropes and cords from a great variety of materials, and the beauty of their workmanship in many cases is little short of marvelous.
The North American Indians, for instance, are known to have made cordage not only from well-known fiber plants, as cotton, yucca and agave, but from such plants as the dogbane and nettle; from the inner bark of trees, slippery elm, willow, linden; from the fibrous roots of the spruce and pine; and from the hair, skins or sinews of various animals.
The native Peruvians were good rope-makers, using a substance known as "totora," as well as many other materials. The Island tribes of the South Seas, expert in making rope, are favored with some very good materials for its manufacture, obtained from the leaves of various palms and plantains, from the fiber of the cocoanut, etc.
As, at the present day, the shipping and fishing industries are among the principal users of cordage, so it has been among all tribes and nations from earliest times. The people who lived on islands or the shores of large bodies of water, and who thus naturally became fishermen, have been the larger users of ropes and lines, and we find they always have been capable of producing a wide variety of fishing lines and nets of excellent construction, capable of capturing all sorts of fish, from the smallest brook trout to the huge sturgeon or halibut.
Even the whale has been successfully hunted by some adventurous tribes, and we show a picture of lines made by the Nootka Indians of Vancouver Island, which are used by them in harpooning whales. The smaller rope is made from sinews of the whale, served or wound with small cord. It is very pliable and exceedingly strong. The harpoon is fastened to this line, which, in turn, is fastened to the larger rope and that to the boat. The large rope shown is made from spruce roots and is about two inches in diameter.
The photograph shown on page 13 was taken expressly for us through the courtesy of the officials of the Peabody Museum, Cambridge, Mass., to whom we are also indebted for our information concerning the use of rope among the various primitive tribes.
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