The Wonder Book Of Knowledge Part 14

Although something like an official newspaper or government gazette existed in ancient Rome, and Venice in the middle of the sixteenth century also had official news sheets, the first regular newspaper was published at Frankfort in 1615. Seven years later the first regular newspaper appeared in England.

It was customary to print the points of the compa.s.s at the top of the early single-sheet papers, to indicate that occurrences from all four parts of the world were recorded. Before very long, the publisher of one of the most progressive papers rearranged the letters symbolic of the points of the compa.s.s, into a straight line, and printed the word NEWS, and in a very short time practically every newspaper publisher decided to adopt the idea.

It is interesting to find that American colonies were not far behind England in establishing newspapers, and equally interesting to know that the most remarkable development of the newspaper has been in the United States, where, in proportion to population, its growth and circulation has been much greater than in any other country. Practically a half of all the newspapers published in the world are published in the United States and Canada.

Every trade, organization, profession and science now has its representative journal or journals, besides the actual newspapers and magazines of literary character, and Solomon's remark might be paraphrased to read: "To the making of newspapers there is no end."

The great and rapid presses of recent years, the methods of mechanical typesetting and the cheapness and excellence of photographic ill.u.s.trations, have all been necessary elements of the great sheets and enormous circulations of the present day, and the twentieth century newspaper is one of the greatest achievements in the whole field of human enterprise.

How Did the Cooking of Food Originate?

As soon as man found that he could produce fire by friction, as the result of rapidly rubbing two sticks together, he began to have accidents with his fires, just as we do today. And it was probably because of one of these accidents, in which some food was cooked quite unintentionally, that primitive man made the great discovery that most of the meats and fruits and roots that he had been accustomed to eating raw, were far better if they were put in or near the fire for a while first.

How Far Away is the Sky-Line?

Unless you happen to be of the same height as the person standing next to you, the sky-line is a different distance away from each of you, for it is really just a question of the distance the eye can see from different heights above the sea-level. A person five feet tall, standing on the beach at the seaside, is able to see about two and three-quarter miles away, while one a foot taller can see about a quarter of a mile further.

A person on the roof of a house a hundred feet high is able to see more than thirteen miles away, on a clear day, and a forty-two mile view may be enjoyed from the top of a mountain a thousand feet high. The aviator who goes up to a level a mile above the sea is able to see everything within a radius of ninety-six miles and the further up he goes the larger the earth's circle becomes to him.

The Story of Rope[7]

Everybody knows what rope is, but everybody does not know how rope is made or of what kinds of fiber it is manufactured. And very few probably know the history of rope making, or how it developed from the simple thread to the great cable which now holds giant vessels to their wharves or aids to anchor them in ocean storms.

Let us go back and try to trace the history of the rope. It is a long one, going out of sight in the far past. In very early times men must have used some kinds of cords or lines for fishing, for tying animals, at times for tying men. These may have been strips of hide, lengths of tough, flexible wood, fibrous roots, and such gifts of nature, and in time all these were twisted together to make a longer and stronger cord or rope.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SCENE IN EGYPTIAN KITCHEN, SHOWING USE OF A LARGE ROPE TO SUPPORT A SORT OF HANGING SHELF]

We have evidence of this. Tribes of savages still have in use cords made of various materials and some of them very well made. These have been in use among them for long centuries. Take the case of our own Indian tribes. They long made use of cordage twisted from cotton and other fibers, or formed from the inner bark of various trees and the roots of others, and from the hairs, skins and sinews of animals.

[Ill.u.s.tration: REPRODUCTION OF SCULPTURE FROM A TOMB IN THEBES, SHOWING PREPARATION OF LEATHER CORDS BY PROCESS SIMILAR TO ROPE MAKING]

Good rope was made also by the old Peruvians, by the South Sea Islanders, and by the natives of many other regions. Those on the seash.o.r.e made fishing lines and well-formed nets, and certain tribes, among them the Nootka Indians, harpooned the whale, using cords made from the sinews of that animal, these being very strong and highly pliable. The larger ropes used by them, two inches in diameter, were made from the fibrous roots of the spruce.

Civilized Rope Makers.

All the ancient civilized peoples used ropes and cordage, made from such flexible materials as their countries afforded. We have pictures of this from ancient Egypt, in which the process of twisting strips of leather into rope is shown on the walls of their tombs. One workman is seen cutting a long strand from a hide which he turns round as he cuts, while another man walks backward with this, twisting it as he goes. The Egyptians also made ropes from papyrus and palm fibers, of which specimens still exist. Only by the use of large and strong ropes could they have moved the ma.s.sive stones seen in their pyramids and temples.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CORDAGE MANUFACTURE BY THE ROPE WALK METHOD

Yarns pa.s.sing from bobbins through perforated plates in forming of strands.

Top truck used in laying of rope.

Forming machine making strands.

Closing tarred Russian hemp cable, 15-3/4 inch circ.u.mference, for Argentine Battleship "Rivadavia."]

When men began to move boats by sails, ropes of some kind must have been needed, and the early ships no doubt demanded long and strong cordage.

We have pictures of these from several centuries before the Christian era, and we are told by Herodotus that Xerxes, when he built his famous bridge of boats across the h.e.l.lespont, 480 B. C., fastened them together by enormous cables which stretched from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e, a distance of nearly a mile. Twelve of these ropes were used, about nine inches thick, some of them being made of flax and others of papyrus.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EARLY TYPE OF MACHINE FOR SPINNING ROPE YARN]

During the medieval and later centuries rope making was an active industry and America was not long settled before the rope maker became active. John Harrison, an English expert in this line, set up a ropewalk in Boston in 1641 or 1642, and for many years had a monopoly of the trade. But after his death the art became common and in 1794 there were fourteen large ropewalks in that city. In 1810 there were 173 of these industries in the United States, and from that time on the business has grown and prospered.

Hand Spinning.

In the period referred to all the work was done by hand, machine spinning being of later date. American hemp was used, this softer fiber being spun by hand long after Manila hemp was spun by machines. The hand-making process, long used, is an interesting one. The first step was to "hackle" the hemp. The hackle was a board with long, sharp steel teeth set in it. This combed out the matted tow of the hemp into clean, straight fiber. The instrument used in spinning was a large wheel, turned by hand, and setting in motion a set of "whirls" or revolving spindles, which twisted the hemp by their motion. The spinner wrapped a quant.i.ty of the hackled hemp around his waist and attached some of the fibers to the whirls, which twisted the hemp as he walked backward down the ropewalk, pulling out new fiber from his waist by one hand and pressing it into form and size with the fingers of the other.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FOUR-STRAND COMPOUND LAYING MACHINE MAKING STRANDS AND LAYING ROPE IN A SINGLE, CONTINUOUS OPERATION]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIXTEEN-INCH TOWLINE WITH EYE SPLICE]

In forming a small rope, two of the yarns thus formed were twisted together in a direction opposite to that of the first twist. Then a second twisting followed, the direction being again reversed. Thus rope making may be seen to consist in a series of twisting processes, each twist opposite to the former, the rope growing in size and strength at each operation. Horse power or water power was used when the ropes became too large to be made by hand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FORMATION OF SLIVER (FOR SPINNING) ON FIRST BREAKER]

[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERIOR OF PRESENT-DAY ROPEWALK]

Machine-made Ropes.

The old ropewalk is today largely obsolete, the rope-making machine taking the place of the hand-making process, which was not adapted to produce the large cables which in time were called for. Steam-driven machines were first introduced about 1838. These are now used alike in making fine threads and yarns and in large ropes.

There are two methods in the modern system of rope making. In one the strands are formed on one type of machine and twisted into a rope on another. In the second method both operations are performed on a single machine. The latter saves s.p.a.ce, but is not so well fitted for large ropes as the former. A plant for the two-part method comprises two or more horizontal strand-forming machines, several bobbin frames, and a vertical laying-machine. The former twists several strands into a rope, the latter several ropes into a cable.

The yarns, which are wound around bobbins, are drawn from them through perforated plates, these so placed that the yarns converge together and pa.s.s into a tube. In this they are compressed and at the same time twisted by the revolution of a long carriage or flyer, which can be made to vary in speed and direction. After being twisted the strands are wound around reels in readiness for the second, or laying process.

In this the full reels are lifted by overhead chains and are placed in the vertical flyers of the laying-machine. Here again the strands are made to pa.s.s through openings and converge into a central tube, through which they pa.s.s to the revolving flyers, which perform the final duty of twisting them into rope. The finished product is delivered to a belt-driven coiling reel on which it is wound.

[Ill.u.s.tration: REMOVING REEL WITH COMPLETED STRAND FROM FORMING MACHINE]

The most complete rope-making machine yet reached is that in which these two machines are combined into one. It economizes s.p.a.ce, machinery and workmen, and also is more rapid in reaching the final result. But there are disadvantages which render it unfit for the larger sizes of rope, and it is therefore used only on a limited range of sizes.

American Hemp.

Among the fibers employed in rope making that of the hemp plant long held the supremacy, though in recent years it has been largely supplemented by other and stronger fibers. This plant is a native of Asia, but is now grown largely in other continents, taking its name from the country in which it is raised, as Russian hemp, Italian hemp, and American, or Kentucky, hemp, it having long found a home in the soil of Kentucky. It differs from the Manila fiber, which has now very largely supplanted it, by being much softer, though of less strength. In the old days of the sailing vessel hempen rope was largely used for the rigging of merchant and war ships, but the use of other fibers and of wire for rigging has greatly reduced the market for Kentucky hemp. There are various other fibers known under the name of hemp, the New Zealand, African, Java, etc., but the Manila and Sisal fibers, since the middle of the last century, have largely taken their place.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOW PINE TAR IS MADE IN THE SOUTH ATLANTIC STATES

1. Building the kiln.