Chapter XVII: Part 17

The turbine motor, 130 tons in weight (Parsons type). The steam plays upon the blades with such power that they develop 16,000 horse-power and revolve the propeller (turbine) 165 times a minute. The motor is 12 feet in diameter, 13′ 8″ long, the blades (numbering thousands) ranging from 18 to 25¹⁄₂ inches in length.]

One of the four immense funnels--without the outer casing. Each is 125 feet above the hull of the ship and measures 24′ 6″ by 19′ 0″.]

This view will give some idea of the interior arrangement of the huge White Star Line triple-screw steamer “Britannic.” Many features undreamed of a dozen years ago have been introduced in the passenger quarters of this ship. As many decks are necessary to provide the required space for state-rooms, public apartments, promenades, etc., several passenger elevators have been installed, which are a great convenience for those who find the use of stairs irksome. There is a fully equipped Gymnasium, a children’s Play Room for the younger passengers, a Squash Racquet Court, a Swimming Pool with sea-water, and the Turkish Bath establishment.

There are accommodations for over 2500 passengers as well as a crew of 950. The view shows how the ship is divided into numerous water-tight compartments, so that should several of these sections become flooded the rest of the ship would remain intact.

The lifeboats, of which there are sufficient to carry all on board, are handled by a new device, by means of which the boats can be launched, when filled, with greater ease and safety than hitherto. Each of the great davits can handle several boats and they are long enough to carry the boats clear of the side of the ship, should any accident cause her to list to one side.

The “Britannic” is nearly 900 feet in length, and with her gross tonnage of 50,000 is the largest British steamer in the world.

What Is Water Made Of?

Every kind of substance in the world is made up of tiny portions, each of which is distinctly just what the whole mass is, but which are so small you cannot see them. A pile of sand, or a cupful of sugar or salt consists of a great many small grains. A cup of water too is made up of what we would call small grains of water, or what we would call grains of water if we could think of them in the same way as we do sugar or salt or sand. These particles are so small that they could not be seen separately, even if the particles did not have the ability to stick so close together that we could not distinguish them even if they were large enough to be seen.

The word used in describing these tiny particles in any substance, water, sugar, sand, salt or anything else is molecule.

What Is a Molecule?

The word molecule means “smallest mass,” which indicates the very smallest division that can be made of any substance without destroying its identity. Every substance is made up of molecules, and in many cases the molecules of one substance will mix with those of another substance, while in other cases they will not. When you dissolve sugar in water or melt lead or change water into steam, the physical body of the substance is changed, but the molecules remain as they were. They are only changed in so far as their relations to each other and to those of another substance are concerned.

How Do We Know a Thing Is Solid, Liquid or Gas?

The relations of the molecules in any substance to each other is what determines whether a substance is a solid, a liquid or a gas. A gas is a substance in which the molecules are constantly moving rapidly about among each other, but always in straight lines. A liquid substance is one in which the molecules are also constantly moving about but which do not move in straight lines. Solids are substances in which the molecules stick together in one position by the power of cohesion which they have. Cohesion means the power of sticking together.

How Big Is a Molecule?

We do not as yet know all there is to be learned about molecules. We know through the wonders of chemistry that small as a molecule is, it is still made up of smaller particles called atoms. An atom is the smallest division of anything that can be imagined. We have found by chemistry that even a molecule is capable of being divided, i.e., it is made up of still smaller particles, but molecules are small enough. An eminent scientist, Sir William Thomson, has given us probably the nearest approach to a correct way of saying something of the size of a molecule. “If a drop of water were magnified to the size of the earth, the molecules would each occupy spaces greater than those filled by small shot and smaller than those occupied by cricket balls.”

To get at what water is made of we must separate it through chemistry into its parts or atoms. When we do this we find that a molecule of water is made of three atoms or parts. Two of these are exactly alike and consist of a gas called hydrogen, and the other part is another gas called oxygen, concerning which gases we have already learned much in the answers to other questions in this book. In other words, when we separate water, which is a liquid, into its parts, we change the relations of the molecules in the water which move in irregular lines, into parts which move in straight lines and, when the molecules of a substance, as we have already seen, move in straight lines, the substance becomes a gas. On the other hand, when you freeze water, it becomes a solid (ice), and in doing that you fix the molecules in the water so that they stick to each other.

Men thought for a long time that water was an element like oxygen and hydrogen, i. e., that its molecules could not be separated in its parts and was, therefore, considered one of the things which could not be divided up, but this was due to the fact that it requires a great amount of power to break up the molecules of water.

What Is an Element?

An element is any substance whose molecules cannot be broken up and made to form other substances. You can take one or more elements and make a compound, which is what water is. A compound is a substance in which the molecules are made up of at least two kinds of elements or elementary substances.

~THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ELEMENTS AND COMPOUNDS~

The things we find in the world are known as either compounds or elements. An element, as we have already learned, is something in which the molecules cannot be broken up. A compound is, therefore, a substance in which the molecules are made of molecules of one or more elements and is either gas, liquid or solid, according to the relations which these molecules have to each other. We have so far discovered less than eighty real elements in the world, although since we find a new one every little while, there are probably many more as yet undiscovered.

Not all elements are gases, of course. Solids like copper, gold, iron, lead and a number of others are elements. Among liquids we have mercury, and of the gases we find hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen, which are the three wonderful gases about which we are about to learn something, and these three are also the world’s most important gases. Ammonia is an element, but, while we think of it as a liquid, the real ammonia is really a gas. Our household ammonia is really a compound of ammonia with something else.

What Is Hydrogen Gas?

Hydrogen is one of the elementary substances in the form of a gas. It has no color or taste or odor, so we can neither see, smell nor taste it. It is the lightest substance known to the world. We have by the aid of chemistry been able to catch and retain it in sufficient quantities to weigh it and have found it to be lighter than anything else in the world. It is soluble in water and some other liquids, but only slightly so. It refracts light very strongly and will absorb in a very remarkable manner with some metals when they are heated. It burns with a beautiful blue flame and very great heat. When burned it combines with oxygen in the air and forms water. Hydrogen is not poisonous but, if inhaled, it prevents the blood from securing oxygen, and so the inhaling of hydrogen will cause death. Hydrogen is not found free in the air except in small quantities like oxygen and nitrogen and is, therefore, secured by separating compounds by known methods. It can be secured by the action which diluted sulphuric acid has on zinc or iron, by passing steam through a red-hot tube filled with iron trimmings, by passing an electric current through water and in other ways. Hydrogen is absolutely necessary to every form of animal or vegetable structure. It is found in all acids.

What Is Oxygen?

Oxygen was discovered in 1774. It is an elementary substance in the form of a gas which is found free in the air. It is colorless, tasteless and odorless and, like hydrogen, cannot therefore be seen, tasted or smelled. It is soluble in water and combines very readily with most of the elements. In most cases when oxygen combines with other things the process of combining is so rapid that light and heat are produced--this combination is called combustion. Where the process of combining with other substances acts slowly the heat and light produced at one time are not enough to be noticed. Where metals tarnish or rust or animal or vegetable substances decay, the same thing chemically is taking place as when you light a fire and produce light or heat--you are making the oxygen combine with the substance in the material which is burning. When iron is rusting or vegetables decaying, the action is so slow that no heat or light is produced, but the result is the same if some outside force does not stop the action. The fire will burn until everything burnable which it can reach is burned out, and in the case of the piece of iron rusting, the action will go on slowly until the whole piece of iron is destroyed--or burned out. Like hydrogen, no vegetable or animal life can live without oxygen continually given it. Oxygen will destroy life and will sustain it.

All of our body heat and muscular energy are produced by slow combustion going on in all parts of the body, of oxygen carried in the blood after it enters the lungs. In sunlight oxygen is exhaled by growing plants.

Oxygen is the most widely distributed and abundant element in nature. It amounts to about one-fifth of the volume of the air belt of the earth; about ninety per cent of all the weight of water is oxygen. The rocks of the earth contain about fifty per cent of oxygen and it is found in most animal and vegetable products and in acids.

What Is Nitrogen?

Nitrogen is the third of the world’s wonderful and important gases. It is also without color, taste or smell. It will not burn or help other substances to burn and it will not combine easily with any other element. It will unite at a very high degree of heat with magnesium, silica, and other metals. About 7.7 per cent of the weight of the air is nitrogen, so that it is a very important part of the air we breathe and it is absolutely necessary in making all animal and vegetable tissues. When united with hydrogen, it produces ammonia, and with oxygen one of the most important acids--nitric acid. It is found free in the air and is thus easily secured. Nitrogen, while very important to all kinds of life, is known as the quiet gas. It stays quietly by itself unless forced to combine under great power with other things, and, even under those conditions, will combine rarely. We find a good deal of nitrogen in the blood but, while we need the nitrogen which is found in the blood, it does nothing particularly to the blood or the rest of the body. The nitrogen which the body uses is valuable to the body only when found in a compound. This nitrogen which the body needs is secured through vegetable products such as the wheat from which our bread is made, and which are said to secure their nitrogen through the aid of microbes which are able to force the nitrogen of the air into a compound. Some day perhaps we shall know all there is to know about nitrogen, which is the least known of these three wonderful and necessary gases.

Why Are Some Things Transparent and Others Not?

Transparency is produced by the way rays of light go through substances or not. When light strikes a substance that is almost perfectly transparent, it means that the rays of light go through it almost exactly as they come in. We think quickly of glass when we think of something readily transparent. Water is almost equally as transparent. When the sunlight is shining on one side of a pane of ordinary window glass, it causes every thing on that side of the window to reflect the light which strikes it in all directions. When these rays of light strike the window pane, they go right through and that is how we are able to see the trees and grass and everything else through a clear window pane. The same reason applies also to the water.

Some kinds of window glass (the frosted kind) we cannot see through--they are not transparent. The surface of a frosted window pane is so made that when the light rays strike it the rays are twisted and broken, and do not come through as they entered the glass.

Sometimes the water is almost perfectly transparent. When water is perfectly clear, it is quite transparent. When you look at or into water that is not transparent, you will know that there are particles of solid matter floating about in it which twist and mix the light rays. If the water is not too deep you can see the bottom sometimes even when there are some particles of solid substances floating about in it, but the deeper the water the more of these solid particles there are generally in it, so that it is impossible in most waters to see the bottom if the water is deep. In some places, however, the water is so free from floating particles that the bottom of the ocean can be seen at quite considerable depths.

Why Is the Sea Water Salt?

All water that comes into the oceans by way of the rivers and other streams contains salt. The amount is so very small for a given quantity of water that it cannot be tasted. But all this river water is poured into the oceans eventually at some point. After it reaches the oceans, the water is evaporated by the action of the sun. When the sun picks up the water in the form of moisture, it does not take up any of the solid substances which the water contained as it came in from the rivers, and while there is about as much water in the ocean all the time and about as much also in the air in the form of moisture also, the ocean never gets fuller; the solid substances from the river waters keep piling up in the ocean and float about in the water there. The salt which is in the river water has been left behind by the sun when it evaporated the water in the ocean for so long that the amount of salt has become very noticeable. The moisture which the sun takes into the air from the ocean is eventually turned back to the earth again in the form of rain. This process of evaporation and precipitation in the form of rain is going on all the time. When the water which is in the form of rain strikes the earth, it is pure water. It sinks into the ground and on the way picks up some salt, finds its way into a river sooner or later, and then evidently gets back into the ocean. All this time it has been carrying the tiny bit of salt which it picked up in going through the ground. But when it reaches the ocean again and is taken up by the sun, it leaves its salt behind and so the salt from countless drops of water is constantly being left in the ocean as it goes up into the air. This has been going on for countless ages and the amount of salt has been increasing in the ocean all the time, so that the sea is becoming saltier and saltier.

Why Does Salt Make Me Thirsty?

The blood in our body contains about the same proportion of salt as the water in the ocean normally. When the supply is normal we do not feel that we have too much salt in our systems, but when you take salt into your mouth the percentage of salt in the body is increased, and the being thirsty, or the desire to drink water afterwards is caused by the demand of the human system that the salt be diluted. The system calls for water or something to drink in order that it may counteract the too great percentage of salt in the system. Other things also, when taken into the body in too great a proportion, cause us to become thirsty. Thirst is merely nature’s demand for more water on account of the necessity of reducing the percentage of some substance like salt, or merely a necessity for having more water in the body.

What Are Diamonds Made Of?

We learned the definition of an element in our study of water and other substances. Many things which were at one time thought by our wisest men to be elements were later found to be compounds of other substances. Water is one of these which we have learned is really not an element at all, but compounded from two gaseous elements, hydrogen and oxygen.

One of the most important elements in the world is the one out of which diamonds are formed. Not because diamonds are so valuable, but because the element referred to, carbon, is found in every tissue of every living thing, both animal and mineral. This carbon is one of the most useful of all elements, but is found in and used by living things always in combination with some other substance. Carbon is combustible, forming carbonic acid gas, from which the earth’s vegetation secures its necessary carbon, which is very great in amount.

When heat is made to act in certain ways on the tissues of animal and vegetable life we get charcoal, lampblack and coke. Carbon will combine with more other substances than any of the other known elements. Its wonders lie in the fact that under various treatments it produces altogether different looking things, although remaining as pure carbon. Our diamonds, for instance, are pure carbon, but our lead pencils, that is, the part we write with, are also pure carbon, and the coal we burn is carbon also. It would be hard to say which of these three forms of pure carbon is most valuable to the world. A great many rich people might say diamonds, while the poor people would surely say coal, especially if you asked them in winter, while the people who write books, and newspaper reporters, would probably say lead-pencils. However, it would be better to choose diamonds, for if you have them you can always trade them for coal or lead-pencils. A very small diamond will buy quite a lot of either coal or lead-pencils. Carbon is one of the solid elements which are not metals. A great many of the important elements in the group of solids are metals.

What Causes Dimples?

A dimple is a dent or depression in the skin on a part of the body where the flesh is soft. The fibers which lay in the tissue under the outside skin help to hold the skin firm. These fibers which are, of course, small run in all directions and are of different lengths. Now and then these fibers will just happen to grow short in one spot or the other and pull the skin in, forming a little depression, but producing a very pleasing effect.

Why Does the Dark Cause Fear?

Fear is an instinct. We are by nature afraid of the things we do not know all about. That is why knowledge is so valuable; when we know about a thing we are sure of our ground. When we are where it is light we can see what is there; when it is dark our imagination becomes active and because we do not know for certain what is there in the dark before us, we imagine things.

Fear of the dark, however, cannot be said to be entirely natural. It comes naturally only when we have come to the age when we begin to imagine things. Animals have no imaginative powers and they do not fear the dark. Some people say that the fear of the dark is bred in us, but little babies do not fear the dark. If they are properly trained they will go to sleep in the dark and will prefer the dark. As they grow older children begin to fear the dark, but that is because their imagination is coming to life and because parents so often make the mistake at this stage of training their children of either encouraging the feeling of fear that darkness brings for the convenient means of punishment it provides through threatening to put the light out, or because they do not take the pains to show that there is no reason for fear.

Most children who fear the darkness are really taught to do so permanently by parents or servants. When a boy or girl first begins to imagine things in the dark, many parents run quickly to the child and say, “Don’t be afraid” or “There is nothing to be afraid of,” and in doing this they perhaps mention the word “fear” for the first time. Repetition of this will always cause the child to associate the word “fear” with “darkness.” As a matter of fact when the boy or girl first shows fear of the darkness, parents should go to them and quiet their fears, but talk about anything else but fear and direct the child’s mind away from any thought of fear.

The Story in a Coil of Rope

How many 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.

Ancient civilized peoples had their ropes and cordage, made from such materials as were available in their respective countries. The Egyptians are said to have made rope from leather thongs, and our illustration will be found interesting in this connection. This is from a sculpture taken from a tomb in Thebes of the time of the Pharaoh of the Exodus.

While this scene is said by the best authority to represent the preparation of leather cords for use in lacing sandals, it has been supposed by some to be a representation of rope making. In any event the process is undoubtedly the same as that used in making rope.

The scene is depicted with the true Egyptian faculty for showing details, making words almost unnecessary to an understanding of their pictorial records. We see the raw material in the shape of the hide, and also two well-made coils of the finished product. One of the workmen is cutting a strand from a hide by revolving it and cutting as it turns. Any one who has not tried it will be surprised to see what a good, even string can be cut from a piece of leather in this way.

Another man is arranging and paying out the thongs to a third, who is evidently walking backward in time-honored fashion, twisting as he goes.

Coming down to more recent times we find that rope-making had been going on for centuries with probably very little change, up to the time of the introduction of machinery and the establishment of the factory system.

~HOW ROPE WAS LONG MADE BY HAND~

In the early days to which we have referred, all the yarn for rope-making was spun by hand in the time-honored way. We are able to represent to our readers by the photographs shown, this now almost lost art. The material shown in the pictures is American hemp, which because the earlier machines were not adapted to working this softer fiber, continued to be spun by hand long after manila was spun chiefly on machines.

The hemp was first hackled, as is also shown by our photograph, the hackle or “hechel” being simply a board having long, sharp steel teeth set into it. This combed out the tow or short, matted fiber, leaving the clean, straight hemp. This “strike” of hemp the spinner wrapped about his waist, bringing the ends around his back and tucking them into his belt, thus keeping the material in place without knot or twist, and allowing the fibers to pay out freely.

The workman in our picture is Johnny Moores, an old-time expert hand-spinner, who can walk off backward from the wheel with his wad of hemp, spinning with each hand a thread as fine and even as can be asked for. In the photograph, in order to show the process more clearly, one large yarn is being spun.

HAND SPINNING.]

The large wheel, usually turned by a boy, is used to convey power to the “whirls,” or small spindles carrying hooks upon which the fiber is fastened. These whirls, revolving, give the twist to the yarn as the spinner deftly pays out the fiber, regulating it with skillful fingers to preserve the uniformity and proper size of the yarn. As he goes backward down the long walk through the “squares of sunlight on the floor” he throws the trailing yarns over the “stakes” placed at intervals along the walk for the purpose.

The spinning “grounds” were usually arranged with wheels at either end, so that spinners reaching the farther end, could go back to their starting point spinning another set of yarns.

Then in the case of small ropes, the strands could be made by attaching two or more yarns to the “whirl” and twisting them together, reversing the motion to give the strands a twist opposite to that given the yarns. These strands were twisted together, again reversing the motion, making a rope. Thus it will be seen that, reduced to its lowest terms, rope-making consists simply of a series of twisting processes. The twisting of the yarns into the strand is known as “forming” or putting in the “foreturn.” The final process is “laying,” “closing” or putting in the “after turn.” Horse-power was used in old times for forming and laying rope which was too large to be made by hand.

How all this work is now done in a modern rope factory by ingeniously devised machinery we shall now see.

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 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 the 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.

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.

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 this is especially true in the preparation room.

Before taking up the distinctly 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 will describe the rope-walk where much of this work is still best carried on.

MANILA HEMP IN WAREHOUSE.]

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

INTERIOR OF ROPE WALK, PLYMOUTH CORDAGE CO.]

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 used and an endless band-rope which conveys the power.

~HOW ROPE IS FORMED AND TWISTED~

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.

As the top truck is forced ahead by the twisting process, the ropemaker by means of greater or less leverage on the “tails”--the loose ropes shown in our picture--preserves a correct lay in the rope. The stakes on which the strands rest are removed one by one to allow the top truck to pass, and 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 now 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, to keep down the vibration which would otherwise tend to lift the truck off the track.

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. Fewer machines are required for a given output--hence, less floor space and fewer workmen. The time-saving element also enters in.

OPENING BALES OF MANILA FIBER FOR PREPARATION.]

Here the fiber is carefully cleaned and combed by a series of fine tooth machinery through which it passes.]

FORMATION OF SLIVER--FIRST BREAKER.

The hanks of fiber are fed by hand into this machine several at a time, where it is grasped by steel pins fitted to a slowly revolving endless chain. A second set of pins moving more rapidly draws out the individual fibers and combs them into a continuous form.

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.]

FOUR-STRAND COMPOUND LAYING-MACHINE.]

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, hence the machine is used on a limited range of sizes only.

As can be seen in the picture, 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 fathoms 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.

Pure Manila rope is the very best and the most satisfactory for all around use. The character of good Manila fiber is such as to impart to a properly made rope such necessary factors as strength, pliability, and wearing qualities.

Regular 3-strand Manila rope is universally used for all general purposes.

For certain special uses, however, and particularly where the rope is to be used for any kind of sheave work, a 4-strand type of construction will be found the most suitable, as such a rope presents a much firmer, rounder, and greater wearing surface than the ordinary 3-strand. There are many different types of 4-strand rope.

The picture shown on this page represents a coil of 4-strand Manila called “Best Fall.” This rope is made of carefully selected fiber; is 4-strand with heart, and is harder twisted than ordinary goods. Best Fall is adapted for heavy hoisting work, as on coal and grain elevators, cargo and quarry hoists and for pile-driver hammer lines.

~AN AVERAGE COIL OF ROPE--1200 FEET~

The standard length coil of rope is 1,200 feet, although extra long lengths are every day made for such purposes as oil-well drilling, the transmission of power, etc., etc.

KNOTS.

From Knight’s American Mechanical Dictionary.

1. Simple over hand knot.
2. Slip-knot, seized.
3. Single bow-knot.
4. Square or reef knot.
5. Square or bow-knot.
6. Weaver’s knot.
7. German or figure-of-8 knot.
8. Two half-hitches, or artificer’s knot.
9. Double artificer’s knot.
10. Simple galley-knot.
11. Capstan or prolonge knot.
12. Bowline-knot.
13. Rolling-hitch.
14. Clove-hitch.
15. Blackwall-hitch.
16. Timber-hitch.
17. Bowline on a bight.
18. Running-bowline.
19. Catspaw.
20. Double running-knot.
21. Double-knot.
22. Sixfold-knot.
23. Boat-knot.
24. Lark’s head.
25. Lark’s head.
26. Simple boat-knot.
27. Loop-knot.
28. Double Flemish knot.
29. Running knot, checked.
30. Croned running-knot.
31. Lashing-knot.
32. Rosette.
33. Chain-knot.
34. Double chain-knot.
35. Double running-knot with check-knot.
36. Double twist-knot.
37. Builder’s knot.
38. Double Flemish knot.
39. English knot.
40. Shortening knot.
41. Shortening knot.
42. Sheep-shank.
43. Dog-shank.
44. Mooring-knot.
45. Mooring-knot.
46. Mooring-knot.
47. Pig-tail, worked on the end of a rope.
48. Shroud-knot.
49. Sailor’s bend.
50. A granny’s knot.
51. A weaver’s knot.]

ENGLISH SPLICE.

For transmission rope.

The successive operations for splicing a 1³⁄₄-inch rope by this method are as follows:

1. Tie a piece of twine (9 and 10, figure 6) around the rope to be spliced, about six feet from each end. Then unlay the strands of each end back to the twine.

2. Butt the ropes together, and twist each corresponding pair of strands loosely, to keep them from being tangled, as shown (_a_) figure 6.

3. The twine 10 is now cut, and the strand 8 unlaid, and strand 7 carefully laid in its place for a distance of four and a half feet from the junction.

4. The strand 6 is next unlaid about one and a half feet, and strand 5 laid in its place.

5. The ends of the cores are now cut off so they just meet.

6. Unlay strand 1 four and a half feet, laying strand 2 in its place.

7. Unlay strand 3 one and a half feet, laying in strand 4.

8. Cut all the strands off to a length of about twenty inches, for convenience in manipulation. The rope now assumes the form shown in _b_, with the meeting-points of the strands three feet apart.

Each pair of strands is now successively subjected to the following operations:

9. From the point of meeting of the strands 8 and 7, unlay each one three turns; split both the strands 8 and 7 in halves, as far back as they are now unlaid, and “whip” the end of each half strand with a small piece of twine.

10. The half of the strand 7 is now laid in three turns, and the half of 8 also laid in three turns.

The half strands now meet and are tied in a simple knot, 11 (_c_) making the rope at this point its original size.

11. The rope is now opened with a marlin-spike, and the half strand of 7 worked around the half strand of 8 by passing the end of the half strand through the rope, as shown, drawn taut, and again worked around this half strand until it reaches the half strand 13 that was not laid in. This half strand 13 is now split, and the half strand 7 drawn through the opening thus made, and then tucked under the two adjacent strands as shown in _d_.

12. The other half of the strand 8 is now wound around the other half strand 7 in the same way. After each pair of strands has been treated in this manner, the ends are cut off at 12, leaving them about four inches long. After a few days’ wear they will all draw into the body of the rope or wear off, so that the locality of the splice can scarcely be detected.]

Why Do We Go to Sleep?

First, of course, we sleep to rest our body and brain. During our waking hours many, if not all, parts of our bodies are active all the time, and with every movement we exhaust or spend some of our strength. Take the case of your arm, for instance. You may be able to move it up and down fifty or a hundred or more times without getting tired, according to how strong you are, but sooner or later you will not be able to move it any more--it is tired--the life has all gone out of it and it needs rest, in order that it may become strong again. Every time you move your arm you destroy certain parts of its tissues, which can only be replaced during rest. Every activity of your body has the same experience, and the constant work of the brain in directing the various movements and activities of the body, tires it out too. As soon as this condition occurs, the brain tells the other parts of the body that it is time to rest, and even if we try to keep awake and go on with our work or play, or whatever it is we are doing, we find sooner or later that it is impossible. If we persist we fall asleep wherever we happen to be. It is not necessary for all parts of the body to be tired before we sleep. One part alone may be so affected by what it has been doing that it alone causes us to fall asleep. Sometimes the eyes become so tired, while we are looking at the pictures in a book or reading, for instance, that we fall off to sleep quickly. It is perhaps easier to bring on sleep by making the eyes tired than in any other way. That is why so many people read themselves to sleep. It is such a gradual passing into unconsciousness that you can hardly ever tell where you left off reading. It is said that when we are awake our bodies are continually planning for the time when we shall need sleep and are continually making some little germ which is carried to the brain as soon as made, and when there are a sufficient number of these little germs piled up in the brain, we go to sleep. The process of sleeping then destroys these germs, and when they are destroyed we again wake up.

Why Do We Wake Up in the Morning?

To answer this we must go back to the answer to the question, “What makes us go to sleep?” We go to sleep in order to secure the rest which our body and brain need to build up the parts which have been destroyed during our active work or play.

We wake up naturally when we have had sufficient rest. We wake up naturally, however, only when the destroyed parts of the body have been replaced. Other things may waken us--a noise of any kind, loud or slight, a startling dream or a moving thing that disturbs our sleep--according to how fully we are asleep. It is said that sometimes only parts of the body are asleep; that we are not always all asleep when we appear to sleep, and that we dream because some part of the body is awake or active. This is probably true. Now then, when all of anyone of us is sleepy, we go into what is called a deep sleep and at such times only something out of the ordinary would awaken us. Gradually, however, various parts of the body become rested and they are said to wake up, and finally when all of us is rested, we naturally wake up all over. If you are healthy and sleep naturally, in a place where you cannot be disturbed by noises or movements of others, you should be “wide awake” when your eyes open and be ready to get up at once. If you feel like turning over for another snooze, when it is time to get up, you did not go to bed as early as you should have done, or else some part of you did not get the required amount of sleep it should have had.

Where Are We When Asleep?

We are just where we lie. It seems to us, of course, because of our dreams when we are asleep that we are away off some place else. Often when we wake up we wonder for a minute or two where we are, as everything seems so strange to us, and it takes a minute or so for us to remember that we are in our own bed, if that is where we went to sleep. This is because of the dreams we have while asleep. In past times the uncivilized savages in various parts of the earth believed that when any of them went to sleep that the real person so asleep actually went away, leaving the body behind; in other words, that the soul went traveling. They thought this because it was the only explanation they could think of for the dreams they had, since almost invariably the dream was about some other place.

Why Does It Seem When We Have Slept All Night That We Have Been Asleep Only a Minute?

This is because all our ideas of passage of time are based on our conscious periods. When we are asleep we are unconscious. It is the same as if time did not pass, and when we wake up the tendency is to start in where we left off. We have learned by experience that when we go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning that much time has passed and this unconscious knowledge keeps us from thinking always that we have been asleep but a minute. But if you drop asleep in the day time, no matter how long you sleep, you wake up thinking that you have been asleep only a minute, and sometimes it is difficult to convince yourself that you have been asleep at all. Sometimes after being asleep for hours, your first waking thought is a continuation of what your mind was on when you went to sleep. The reason for this, as stated above, is that we cannot keep track of passing time when we are asleep, because we are perfectly unconscious.

Why Should We Not Sleep With the Moon Shining On Us?

There is no harm in letting the moon shine on us while we are asleep. This is one of the queer superstitions that has developed in the world. A great many people think that something terrible will happen if the moon is allowed to shine into the room where they are asleep. Not so many believe this as used to do so, thanks to the more enlightened condition of things in the world.

To prove to yourself that no harm can come to you through the moon shining into your bedroom or upon you as you are asleep, you have only to remember that a great many men and very many more animals sleep out under the sky every night and that the moon must shine on them while they are asleep. As a matter of fact, people who sleep out under the open sky are generally in possession of more rugged health than people who sleep in beds in closed rooms. So it is rather better to let the moon shine on you while asleep than not.

This belief probably started with some one who had trouble in going to sleep with the moon shining on him, because the light of the moon might have a tendency to keep him awake. It is easier to go to sleep in a dark room than in one that is lighted, because when there is no light there is less about you to keep you awake.

What Makes Us Dream?

Dreams originate in the brain. The brain has many parts and some parts of it may be asleep while others are not. If all parts of the brain are actually asleep, it is said there can be no dreams. We have dreams about things which seem very natural while we are having them, and which we know would be impossible if we were wholly awake, because those parts of the brain which control the other parts are probably asleep while the dream is taking place, and it is then that we have those fantastic and highly imaginative dreams, for the brain is not under control in every sense.

We used to believe that dreams have no purpose, just as now we know that they have no meaning. But it has been discovered that dreams have a purpose in that they protect our sleep. You see, every dream is started by some disturbance or excitement of the body or mind. Something may be pressing or touching us while we sleep, or a strange sound may start a dream, or perhaps it is some uncomfortable position in which we are lying or trouble in the stomach on account of eating something we should not. Whatever it may be, those things wake up some part of the brain, because if all parts of the brain were asleep, we could not feel or hear anything. Any such disturbance or excitement would naturally excite the whole brain and wake us up completely if it were not for dreams. The dream takes care of this and enables the rest of the body and brain to sleep while one or more parts of the brain are disturbed and even perhaps awake. We may perhaps have become uncovered in some way. This would produce a cold feeling and might wake a part of the brain and cause a dream about skating or some other winter amusement or experience, or even perhaps one about falling through the ice, and still we might not be uncovered so much that it would make any great difference. The dream comes and we go on with our sleep without waking up, whereas if it were not for the dream we would awaken. In other words, dreams are just another wise provision of nature which enables us to go right on and get the rest we need, even if our digestion is out of order, or some part of our brain is disturbed through something we read about, or were told of, or we thought of while still awake.

Why Do We Know We Have Dreamed When We Wake Up?

Because we remember some of our dreams. Sometimes we do not remember the dreams we dreamed. This is just like what happens when we are awake. We remember some things and forget others.

Dreams are a sort of safety valve in our sleep. We dream because not all of our brain is asleep at the time and it is a wise provision of nature that permits the waking part of the brain to go on working without disturbing the sleep of the other parts of the brain. If a large part of the brain is awake and engaged in making the dream, we are very apt to remember the dream; but when we dream and cannot remember what the dream was, it is because only a very small portion of the brain was awake and making a dream.

What Causes Nightmare?

A nightmare is a dream of what we might call a vigorous kind. A nightmare is caused by a feeling of intense fear, horror, anxiety or the inability to escape from some great danger. A nightmare is the result of either an irregular flow of blood to the brain or by a stomach that is not in proper condition.

The name for this kind of a dream comes from the words night and mare. The latter word in one of its several meanings indicates an incubus or evil vision, and a dream of an evil vision involving fear or horror came to be termed a mare. Since they occurred generally at night, since most people sleep at night, they became known as nightmares. Nightmares are more common to children than grown-up people because children are more apt to have an uneven flow of blood to the brain and also are more apt to eat the things which put the stomach in a state of unrest which causes nightmares. Grown-up people are more likely to have learned to avoid the abuses of the stomach which are apt to produce nightmares.

What Are Ghosts?