12. Various improvements have been made in the machinery, for performing the different operations of rope-making; but, these not having been generally adopted, it is unnecessary to notice them more particularly; especially, as they do not affect the general principles of the art.
13. Within a few years, cotton-yarn has been employed in the manufacture of ropes; but this material has not yet been sufficiently tested, to determine its fitness for the purpose. A kind of vegetable fibre, brought from Manilla, and hence called Manilla hemp, is very extensively applied in making ropes, and, for some purposes, is preferred to other materials.
14. The intestines of animals are composed of very powerful fibres, and those of sheep and lambs are manufactured into what is called cat-gut, for the use of musical instrument-makers, hatters, watch-makers, and a variety of other artificers. Animal hair, as that from the tail and mane of horses, is frequently employed as the material for ropes; and such are durable, elastic, and impervious to moisture. They, however, are not applicable in cases, where the rope is subject to considerable friction.
15. Hemp is cultivated in various parts of the world, and especially in Russia, whence it is exported to other countries in great quantities. It is also produced, to a considerable extent, in the state of Kentucky, and in many other parts of the United States. Flax is still more generally cultivated than hemp; but its chief application is to the manufacture of cloth, as it does not answer well for any cordage larger than a bed-cord. The formation of cloth from hemp is also very common; and, in this case, the yarn for the coarse cloths is spun on the rope-maker's wheel in the manner already described. The cloth is generally used for making bags, sacking-bottoms for beds, and sails for vessels.
16. Rope-making is a manufacture of general utility, as cordage of some kind is used more or less in every family in all civilized communities; nor are there many trades capable of being carried on, with convenience, without it. But the great utility of cordage, in all its varieties, is most conspicuous in the rigging and equipment of vessels; and the extensive demand for it, in this application, renders rope-making one of the most important and extensive of the primitive trades.
17. Nor does the utility of cordage end with its application to the purposes for which it was originally designed. Old ropes are converted into oakum by untwisting and picking them to pieces. The oakum thus produced is driven into the seams of vessels, to render them water-tight.
18. As regards the invention of this art, nothing can be gathered from ancient records. We only know, in general, that cordage was in considerable use among the nations of antiquity, especially among the Greeks and Romans, who probably learned its application to rigging vessels from the Phœnicians.