The Story of Rope7
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.
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.
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 seashore 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.