The story of rope

by Plymouth Cordage Company

Part III

CHAPTER I
Buying, Grading and Storing of Fiber

In Part II we described the various fibers from which rope is made and pointed out the importance of expert knowledge and foresight in the buying of these raw materials. Purchasing power and the resources for grading and using each bale of fiber with strict regard to its particular fitness for his products are also of special value to the rope manufacturer.

We have already shown that Manila fiber or hemp, as it is commonly called, is the principal and for most purposes the best cordage material. Including the numerous commercial grades and the brands of individual packers, the market designations or marks of Manila hemp run into the hundreds and cover a wide range in the four important qualities of strength, texture, length and color. A single mark may, furthermore, vary greatly in one quality or another from time to time, so that the market designation alone is not a safe sign of the fiber’s fitness for a certain purpose.

Because of these facts the only way a manufacturer can be sure of sufficient fiber of the character required to insure uniform quality in each of his products is by examining and re-grading, according to his own standards, the hemp delivered to him and by combining selections of different marks in the right proportions to give the desired results. To do this successfully requires a thorough knowledge of fibers, large stocks always available and special storage facilities.

EXAMINING AND RE-GRADING MANILA FIBER

The steadily increasing demand for our products and our large scale of production warrant our buying yearly more Manila hemp than any other single manufacturer—more than many combined. Our purchases are governed, furthermore, by the knowledge gained through more than ninety years’ experience with the fiber markets and rope-making. These facts explain why we are able to secure the choicest marks so consistently and in such quantity.

We have also erected warehouses capable of holding large quantities of fiber for months at a time so that we can store such as is not necessary for our immediate wants. This helps us to take full advantage of specially favorable offerings in the fiber markets. In addition, we maintain a system of fiber examination and classification by our own experts together with warehouse records that insure each bale being put to the particular use its quality fits it for.

TRACK AND WAREHOUSE FACILITIES, PLYMOUTH CORDAGE COMPANY

The important question of quality is determined when the hemp first reaches us. The carloads of Manila from Boston, New York, Seattle and other ports are brought directly alongside our warehouses and after the hemp has all been transferred to the platforms every mark is carefully gone over. Bales are opened, the hanks laid out flat, the fiber minutely examined and each mark given our own grading. This examination is conducted purely from the manufacturing standpoint and is entirely in addition to the one made on the dock. The expert ability to judge fiber and the constant care required can be imagined from the fact that single shipments frequently contain as many as seventy-five marks.

STACKING MANILA FIBER WITH PORTABLE, COMPRESSED-AIR ENGINE

The weighing and storing of the fiber follow next, and the latter is a task of considerable magnitude, for our warehouses contain a floor space of over 370,000 square feet and each mark must be so placed that it will be readily accessible as needed. When the bales are put on the scales and an entry made of the weight—always close to 275 pounds on Manila—a record is also set down for each bale which identifies it by mark, shipment and location in warehouse, according to the section, bay and hoist selected for it. The hemp is then built up into orderly piles with the aid of a portable compressed-air engine, each mark being placed by itself.

TRUCKING MANILA FIBER INTO FACTORY WAREHOUSE

By means of this warehouse system and the separate record showing the proper use for every mark in each shipment, the qualities and quantities of fiber needed by any mill for the regular day’s work or for a particular job can be gotten out at a moment’s notice and with very small chance of error. As an additional safeguard, however, against accidental use of the wrong lot of fiber, we maintain a checking system which would reveal at once any mistake in delivery from warehouse to mill.

The careful methods we have just described are indicative of the watchfulness maintained with each of the many fibers we use, although in none of them is there as great range of quality as in Manila, nor is purchasing power so important a factor.

A recent and interesting development in connection with our Sisal importations is the direct steamship service now in effect between Yucatan and North Plymouth, and because of which cargoes of this fiber can now be brought directly alongside our own pier, unloaded by our own employees and trucked at once into our own warehouse.

SISAL FIBER BEING TRANSFERRED FROM WAREHOUSE TO MILL

Every user of rope naturally expects that under equal conditions he will receive the same service from one rope that he does from another of the same kind and size made by the same manufacturer. The Plymouth Cordage Company aims to have each of its products give that sort of service; first, by possessing the best materials, facilities and workmen obtainable; second, by utilizing each of these factors to the best advantage.

This policy, so well illustrated in our buying and selecting of fiber, finds its expression in every phase and department of our business, and herein lies one of the vital reasons why Plymouth Rope has always been so popular and is becoming increasingly so among discriminating rope buyers.

Speedy transfer of the fiber from warehouse to mill is made by an industrial railroad operated by compressed air, which carries the bales directly into the various opening rooms.

NO. 2 TAR HOUSE, PLYMOUTH CORDAGE COMPANY

REAR VIEW NO. 3 MILL, PLYMOUTH CORDAGE COMPANY

CHAPTER II
Preparation of Fiber for Spinning—Formation of “Sliver”

The opening room where the fiber is made ready for the preparation machinery is a reminder of the days when all rope-making processes were hand work. The bales are first opened up. In the case of Manila this means cutting away the straw matting put on to protect the fiber in shipment. Then the hanks which are packed in various ways—sometimes doubled, sometimes twisted—are taken out and straightened and the band at the end of each hank removed.

No machinery has yet been perfected for doing the work just described, but the first of the preparation processes, a short step beyond, tells quite a different story. Here the hanks of such fibers as require a special cleaning treatment are placed on fast-working hackling machines which comb away most of the snarls, loose tow and dirt.

PREPARATION ROOM, NO. 3 MILL, PLYMOUTH CORDAGE COMPANY

At this point hard fibers—Manila, Sisal and New Zealand—are usually oiled to soften them and to make them more workable for the operations that follow. The oil, furthermore, acts as a preservative. It is a matter of importance to the buyer, however, that the fiber should not be too heavily oiled, for that merely increases the weight and cost of the rope without improving its quality. Our experts have determined through long experience the amount of oil that should be used to best serve the interests of both manufacturer and buyer, and have perfected a process which insures a perfect distribution over all the fibers, while frequent tests on each machine, in which definite quantities of fiber are weighed before and after oiling, prevent any excess.

WHERE THE LUBRICATING OIL IS MIXED

The quality of oil used is also important, for grades containing acids have a harmful effect on all vegetable fiber. We compound our own oils and we also take great care to prevent acids from entering our grounds or factories and so coming in contact with our products.

Long ago the Plymouth Cordage Company learned that in the methods employed in the preparation of fiber for spinning lay one of the secrets of fine rope-making. To secure a more effective and special treatment in this process, we have added to the regular machines many improvements of our own. So highly perfected is the apparatus that by machine work entirely the separate hanks of fiber are combed and elongated into a soft, continuous sliver of any size desired and of convenient length, glossy in appearance, perfectly clean, and with each fiber lying as nearly as possible in the straight position which gives it maximum strength. These operations, in which the entire character of the comparatively short vegetable fiber changes seemingly, are wholly a development of modern rope-making, since in the days of hand spinning no sliver was necessary.

FORMATION OF SLIVER—FIRST BREAKER

The machines are arranged in series, usually as follows: a first and second breaker, a coarse and a fine spreader and a draw frame. The treatment is varied to suit the particular requirements of different hemps or ropes by a prolonging or shortening of the series and by the adjusting of individual machines, but the method is always essentially the same.

SECOND BREAKER
SPREADER
DRAW FRAME

REDUCING SIZE OF SLIVER FOR SPINNING

The purpose of the first breaker is to form the primary sliver or “roping” as it is sometimes called. The hanks of fiber—somewhat matted if they have been oiled—are fed by hand into the machine, several at a time. Steel pins fitted to a slowly revolving endless chain grasp the mass while a second set of pins, moving more rapidly, draws out the individual fibers and combs them into a continuous form.

GROUP OF DRAW FRAMES

The operations which follow are very similar. A number of “ropings” are allowed to feed together into a first, slowly revolving set of pins and are drawn out again by a high-speed set into a smaller sliver, the pins becoming finer on each succeeding machine until the draw frame is reached. Here the fiber is pulled from a single set of pins between two rapidly moving leather belts called aprons. On all of these machines the fiber passes between rollers as it goes onto and leaves the pins and the sliver is given its cylindrical form by being drawn through a circular opening.

A finished sliver must conform to the special size desired for spinning. Different sizes are secured by changing the number of “ropings” which are allowed to feed into the fine spreader. When “rule of thumb” standards of measurement were practiced the size of the sliver was tested by the number of turns which could be clasped in the hand between the ends of the thumb and forefinger. If the workman’s hand chanced to be different from the official hand, he made allowances accordingly. At best this was a rough and ready method, but through long practice the men could become surprisingly expert. Mechanical grips or clasps are now used because they are more convenient and afford greater accuracy.

The wonder of modernism in rope-making is nowhere more striking than in the preparation room. To pass from one end, where the raw hemp is received just as it left the hands of the native Filipino laborer with his crude methods, down through the long rows of machines to the draw frames from which the sliver is delivered in a form that can be likened to a stream of molten metal, is to cover decades of inventive genius and mechanical development.

The mechanism performs its work so accurately that at first glance the man feeding the fiber into the machine and all the other men, busy about their various duties, would appear to be playing very minor parts in modern rope-making. In reality, expert workmanship and watchfulness are very important factors. Good rope depends no more upon scientific machine processes than upon ceaseless attention to the little details. And the attention paid to the details of the preparation room is especially important.

A rope expert once said, “Any manufacturer can make rope—it is a simple operation; but very few can make good rope because few are willing to devote the necessary amount of pains to each of the little operations in the process.”

PLYMOUTH CORDAGE COMPANY FACTORY TODAY AND IN EARLY DAYS

CHAPTER III
Spinning of Rope Yarn and Binder Twine

Hand spinning, as practiced in the early days of the Plymouth Cordage Company, yielded a remarkably good rope yarn, but large production was very expensive and laborious. The length of the spinning grounds, which with the buildings protecting them were known as the ropewalk, determined the length yarn that could be spun. Hand and water power had to suffice, and even the best spinner could make but two yarns at a time.

Steam-driven spinning machines were introduced, however, as early as 1838, for our records show that near the close of that year Bourne Spooner, founder of our company, wrote to one of the directors as follows:

“Our new spinning concern has consumed more time in the work of preparation than was expected, but we are now ready—this being the second day of steam spinning. It affords me much gratification to say that everything connected with this enterprise has gone comfortably on, and my faith in the utility and expediency of the measure is unabated.”

Through the courtesy of the Watson Machine Co. of Paterson, N. J., we are able to show an excellent picture of one of these earlier-type machines which, it will be noted, is tended by a woman. Those familiar only with the present factory practice of putting none but men on the spinning machines may be surprised to know that during this first period in the modern development of the process women spinners were regularly employed by the Plymouth Cordage Company and other concerns.

SPINNING ON EARLY-TYPE MACHINE

Our founder’s belief in the new method was speedily justified. A way was found to adapt the machines to the spinning of Russian and American hemps which could not at first be handled as successfully as Manila because of their somewhat softer texture. About 1848 the self-feeding device came into use. As the years passed, still other improvements were invented and utilized, giving us the highly perfected machine of today.

Under favorable working conditions the only interruption in the spinning process, as now carried on, is the removal of the full bobbin and the substitution of an empty one. A bobbin will hold as much as half a mile of yarn which will weigh in the neighborhood of ten pounds—the length and weight of the load varying with different sizes of yarn.

The feed portion of the machine, as can be seen in the picture below, consists of a revolving endless chain fitted with fine steel pins, and by these the fiber—now in the sliver form given it in the preparation room—is drawn from its bundle and carried toward a tube which can be adjusted to regulate the size of the yarn as desired. Into this tube the fiber disappears in a fashion only to be described by the single word “whisked.”

THE MODERN SPINNING PROCESS

In the preceding chapter we spoke of the importance of an even sliver in the securing of a good yarn and pointed out the care with which our sliver is prepared. We have still further lessened the possibility of bunches or thin spots in our yarns by perfecting and installing on all spinning machines a device which insures a uniform amount of feed to the tube at all times.

The two capstans which pull the fiber from the pins and through the tube show in our picture directly at the left of the bobbin. Their revolution also imparts the twist to the yarn. The amount of this twist—the number of turns per foot—depends on the capstan’s speed and is fixed in a way best explained by describing the flyer—the first part of the machine to be perfected.

The closed flyer, as the present-day type is called, is composed of two discs joined by stay rods and carrying through their centers a spindle which holds the wooden bobbin. The capstans are set into the disc at the left and revolve with the flyer, at the same time receiving a lesser reverse power from an independent gearing. Their speed is, therefore, equivalent to the difference in speeds of these two drivers.

“WITH ITS HUNDREDS OF FLYERS.” SPINNING ROOM, NO. 1 MILL

To insure an even twist these speeds, once they are set, should not be allowed to vary, and to obtain this steady running, the Plymouth Cordage Company uses, almost entirely, machines of a special type, so constructed as to guarantee the best possible results.

Binder twine is always given what is known as a right-hand twist, but rope yarns must, for certain kinds of rope, be given a left-hand twist. This is accomplished by reversing the direction of the capstans. The flyer carries four grooved wheels—two for the right, the others for the left-hand yarn—and by these the yarn is guided from the capstans to the revolving bobbin.

The spinning room, with its hundreds of flyers, each running in the neighborhood of 1,500 revolutions a minute, speaks eloquently of the years’ changes. Gone is the “drowsy dreamy sound” of the wheel in Longfellow’s “Ropewalk,” and in its place we hear the high singing noise of the gears—the voice of modern industry. And with the changes have come more rapid and economical production, better hours and pay for the workman, better rope for the consumer.

SPINNING ROOM, NO. 3 MILL,
PLYMOUTH CORDAGE COMPANY

PLATFORM AND APPARATUS FOR STORAGE AND HANDLING OF TAR SUPPLY,
PLYMOUTH CORDAGE COMPANY

CHAPTER IV
Tarring of Rope Yarns and of Small Ropes

In the last chapter we described the spinning of rope yarn. Let us now turn to the process where, for certain ropes, this yarn is treated with the tar, the manufacture of which we have already discussed.

To penetrate and adhere to the yarn the tar must be heated to 200° or over. This work is begun in tanks from which the liquid feeds into the long copper-lined troughs where the tarring takes place. Through these “coppers,” so called, run steam pipes to further regulate the temperature. Excessive heating would cause the loss of the tar’s good qualities, and to prevent this the supply in the “coppers” must be freshened frequently.

The picture on the [next page] illustrates how the yarns unwind from the bobbins, onto which they have been wound in the spinning process, and pass on into the “copper.” The plates which keep the yarns under the tar are shown elevated above the surface to give a clearer idea of their operation. As the heavily saturated yarns come from the “copper,” they are compressed between two rollers, adjusted to leave in the yarn as much or as little tar as needed for the particular goods being made and to turn back the surplus.

The pull which carries the yarn through the tar and between the rollers comes from two large drums around which the yarns travel preparatory to reeling onto friction-driven receiving bobbins.

Goods of nine-thread size and under are usually tarred in the completed rope form, but the process is essentially the same as with the yarns.

Visitors to our tar-houses frequently remark upon the rich golden brown of our tarred goods. Those who use and sell them have come to look upon that color—an outward sign of right materials and methods—as the Plymouth mark of the weather-resisting qualities contained in the goods.

YARNS ENTERING THE “COPPER”

CHAPTER V
Forming and Laying of Ropes and Cables—Ropewalk Method

Before taking up the strictly modern machines so largely used now in the final processes of rope-making—the forming of strands, laying of common ropes and closing of cable-laid goods—we shall describe the ropewalk method of performing these operations as it is practised today.

For making tarred goods in all but the smaller sizes the walk has certain advantages not afforded by more advanced methods. It also provides efficient equipment for turning out the largest ropes, which would otherwise require special machinery.

The long alleys or grounds where the work takes place are usually laid out in pairs, one for forming, the other for laying and closing. Each ground has a track to accommodate the machines and an endless band-rope which conveys the power.

At the head of the forming ground stand frames holding the bobbins of yarn. The yarns for each strand first pass through a plate perforated in concentric circles. This arrangement gives each yarn the correct angle of delivery into a tube where the whole mass gets a certain amount of compression.

CORDAGE MANUFACTURE BY THE ROPEWALK METHOD

YARNS PASSING FROM BOBBINS THROUGH PERFORATED PLATES

“TOP TRUCK”—LAYING PROCESS

FORMING MACHINE—MAKING STRAND

CLOSING TARRED RUSSIAN HEMP CABLE 15¾″ CIRCUMFERENCE FOR ARGENTINE BATTLESHIP “RIVADAVIA”

The forming machine—a heavy carriage surmounted by the band-rope wheel into which are geared several spindles and a driving drum—is now drawn up, and each group of yarns is attached to a separate spindle as shown opposite. A rope made fast at either end of the walk is given a few turns around the drum, the band-rope is set in motion and the machine moves off, leaving in its wake the compactly twisted strands.

In the case of a common right-laid rope, the forming twist is left hand. A change to right hand can be made simply by shifting clutches. The amount of turn or twist depends on the diameter of the drum, which is adjustable.

Behind the machine follows a man who swings out the stakes, placed at intervals along the walk, and throws the strands over them. When the process is completed the strands are cut away at either end and transferred to the laying ground, the stakes being pushed back to allow the return of the forming machine for another trip.

INTERIOR OF ROPEWALK, PLYMOUTH CORDAGE COMPANY

The two laying machines stationed at opposite ends of the walk greatly resemble the forming machine. One—usually the “afterturn,” so called—is made fast; the other, or “foreturn,” is braked down but not secured. The strands are attached to separate spindles on each machine and given a little extra twisting from both ends—left hand as in the forming. During this process of putting in the “hard,” so called, as well as in the laying itself, the foreturn machine is drawn slowly ahead by the shortening of the strands.

For the laying, the ends of the strands at the afterturn machine are transferred to a single spindle. The “top”—a cone-shaped block containing a groove for each strand and mounted on a light truck—is backed up to the machine, the strands are inserted and the twisting recommenced, the direction of the afterturn spindles now being reversed. The resulting tendency of the strands to untwist is counteracted, partly by a left-hand revolution of the foreturn spindles, and partly by the presence of the “hard” or surplus twist just described.

As the top truck is forced ahead by the twisting process, the rope-maker preserves a correct lay in the rope by means of greater or less leverage on the “tails”—the loose ropes shown in our picture. The stakes on which the strands rest are removed one by one to allow the top truck to pass and are then replaced to support the rope until the laying is finished and the reeling in of the rope begun.

The closing process on cable-laid goods is like the laying except that the twist is reversed. The work being with three complete ropes—frequently very large—a heavier top truck is necessary, and this must often be ballasted, as shown in our illustration on [page 80], to keep down the vibration which would otherwise tend to lift the truck off the track.

SIXTEEN-INCH TOWLINE WITH EYE-SPLICE

LATHYARN AND TIE ROPE MACHINES, NO. 2 TAR HOUSE, PLYMOUTH CORDAGE COMPANY

CHAPTER VI
Forming and Laying of Ropes and Cables—Factory Method, Two-Machine System

Unlike the ropewalk system of making strands, ropes and cables described in the preceding chapter, the factory method, so called, is a development of the last few decades only. From the first this company has been a leader in purchasing the best stock machines obtainable and in designing devices to fulfill special requirements—a policy which has given us unequalled production facilities.

To describe this equipment in detail would require an entire book. We shall attempt, in this chapter and the next, to give an idea of the principal machines only.

There are two methods to the modern system: that in which the strands are formed on one type of machine and twisted into a rope on another; and that in which both operations are performed on a single machine. The second method carries with it the advantage of economy in space and equipment, but is not followed so generally with the larger sizes of rope as is the first.

A complete set for the two-part method comprises two or more horizontal strand-forming machines, several bobbin frames and a vertical laying-machine. In our illustration, the latter is shown making three ropes into a cable—a process essentially the same as where three strands are united into a single rope.

Three men usually suffice on the strand-making—one to tend the machines, the others to tend the bobbins which turn on fixed posts and can be renewed as needed without interrupting the process.

The yarns are first drawn from the bobbins through the perforated plates seen in the lower section of the picture, the entire number being so distributed as to converge in layers and at the proper angles around one central yarn. They next pass into a tube. Here the whole mass is compressed and at the same time is twisted by the revolution of the long carriage or flyer, which, as our picture shows, supports a winding-reel and two capstans.

The strand can be twisted right or left hand as called for. The amount of twist is regulated by the flyer’s speed—easily varied by the use of different gears.

The two capstans are geared to pull the strand through the tube and, by holding it taut, keep the twist uniform. The reel also has its separate gears and revolution. Whenever the increasing diameter of the load tends to make it exert too much strain on the strand, the reel is slowed down by an ingenious friction device. The strand is guided into even layers on the reel by an arm which is made to travel from side to side.

Here, then, are four distinct operations going on at once and all in perfect harmony. From this may be judged the many difficulties which had to be overcome before strands could be manufactured in such small space.

HORIZONTAL FORMING MACHINES MAKING STRANDS

VERTICAL LAYING-MACHINE MAKING OIL-WELL CABLE

FORMING MACHINES (WINDING REEL ON FARTHER MACHINE REMOVED)

ROPE-MAKING MACHINERY, PLYMOUTH CORDAGE COMPANY

The illustration opposite [page 85] shows the machines which make Plymouth Lathyarn and Hide Rope. Although somewhat smaller than the type just described, these machines are constructed and operate in practically the same manner. The speed of their flyers is naturally much slower, however, since the goods they work on need not be twisted so hard as a rope strand.

For the laying process, in which the strands are united to make a rope, the full reels are removed from the forming machines by overhead chains, as shown on the [opposite page], and by like means are placed in the vertical flyers of the laying-machine. The strands pass through openings in the top-piece just above the flyers and converge into a central tube still higher up to form the rope.

REMOVING REEL WITH STRAND FROM FORMING MACHINE

When the machine is in operation the whole lower portion, from the tube down, revolves, either to the right or left as the goods require, and thus puts the twist into the rope. This twist being opposite, always, to that of the strands, the natural tendency of the latter as they are laid together would be to loosen up. To regulate this, each flyer is made to revolve on its own axis—in a direction opposite to the general direction of the machine. Each reel revolves also on its axis to feed out the strand—the effect of the changing load being met as before by a friction attachment.

The overhead pulleys, which perform the same mission for the rope that the capstans previously did for the strands, deliver the finished product onto a belt-driven coiling reel where it is guided into even layers by the workman tending the machine.

As already explained, the laying-machine is used in the same way when three ropes are made into a cable. When a four-strand rope is to be turned out the machine has four strand-reels. If the strands are to be laid around a heart rope, as in transmission goods, the heart feeds directly into the twist tube from a smaller reel placed on the top-piece previously mentioned.

All the foregoing machines are equipped with ingenious devices for measuring the strand or rope as it is made, so that the attendant can tell instantly from the gauge how many feet have been run. The features we have here touched on are only a few of the many that have transformed the final stages of rope-making from a laborious task—dependent for its success on the skill of the individual expert—into quick, sure operations where every problem is met with the unfailing accuracy of a perfect machine. Rope nowadays is, generally speaking, made more scientifically, more uniformly than it was in the days of strictly hand processes. And the end is not yet. Better and still better rope should mark the years to come.

FOUR-STRAND COMPOUND LAYING-MACHINE

CHAPTER VII
Forming and Laying of Ropes—Factory Method, Single-Machine System

Modern rope-making ingenuity reaches its high-water mark in the compound laying-machine where the two operations of forming the strands and laying them into a rope are combined. Up to a certain point this method is more economical than that in which the forming and laying are unconnected as already described. Fewer machines are required for a given output,—hence less floor space and fewer workmen. The time-saving element also enters in.

The compound laying-machine must, however, be stopped each time that the supply of yarn on any bobbin is so low as to call for a fresh one. This would occur so frequently in the case of the larger ropes as to offset the advantages just mentioned, and the machine is therefore used on a limited range of sizes only.

As can be seen in the picture opposite, the machine contains a vertical shaft with upper and lower projecting arms which support the bobbin-flyers—four in number in this particular case. The bobbins within each flyer turn on separate spindles, allowing the yarns to pass up through small guide plates and thence into a tube.

Each flyer is geared to revolve on its own axis, thus twisting its set of yarns into a compact strand. At the same time all the flyers revolve with the main shaft in an opposite direction and form a rope out of the strands as the latter come together in a central tube still higher up.

The rope is drawn through this tube by a series of pulleys which exert a steady pull and so keep the proper twist in the rope. From these pulleys the finished product is delivered onto a separately driven coiling reel, an automatic device registering meanwhile on a dial the number of feet run.

The small reel, seen near the head of the main shaft, holds the small heart rope which is fed into the center of certain four-strand ropes to act as a bed for the strands.

The compound laying-machine can be had in many sizes of differing bobbin capacity, and the extent and variety of a manufacturer’s equipment on this type is one important indication of his ability to turn out promptly and at a reasonable price the sizes of rope in most common demand.

SHIPPING PLATFORM, PLYMOUTH CORDAGE COMPANY

THE
UNIVERSITY
PRESS
CAMBRIDGE
MASS