Jump rope

“ When a jumper comes down on his heels, instead of jumping from his toes, he is apt to make the skipping injurious by jarring his back. The players jump in turn over a long rope turned by two of the players. ”

“ The windlass, as I have said, revolved slowly, but it revolved persistently. If I would remain with my head above the well-rim—which, I freely confess, I had a morbid desire to do—I must swarm as persistently up the rope. That was an eerie and airy sort of treadmill: to climb, and climb, and always climb, paying out the cord beneath me, that I might remain in one place. ”

“ If we have fair room to balance, we play the rope [Pg 222] entirely free with our arms and the spring of our body, using only an anchor to the rock if we need it. If we have not room, and especially if we are protecting a leader, whose fall would jerk us off most positions of free balance, we put the rope over the point and play it round with both hands, ready to grip and spring it upon our arms if a jerk comes. Or we pass the active rope round our forearm or over the thigh or across the shoulder, on its way to the belay-point. ”

“ The rope must be snatched in as he falls, round the belay or loose in the hands. If the fall is from our own level, or from only diagonally above us, we can tighten the rope at once, and this serves to give a sideways tug to the man falling, which lessens the force of the final jerk as he swings in below us. ”

“ All we know so far about the breaking-point of mountaineering ropes, is that they may break under a shock which will leave a man unmoved in his steps though, on trial, they may resist a tension far greater than can be put upon them by the dropping suddenly into space of a man’s weight.
An athlete may burst a taut chain by muscular effort. A horse may burst his girths by a little inflation. What about a slack rope? ”

“ The man got it under his arms, and after hauling him along for a hundred yards at the least—and one may judge of the velocity with which he was dragged through the water, by the fact that it took the united strain of ten powerful men to get him in—he was brought safely on board, pale and blue, when we found that the running of the rope had crushed in his broad chest, below his arms, as if it had been a girl’s waist, indenting the very muscles of it and of his back half an inch deep. ”

“ 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 accomplished75 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. ”

“ The last ten feet are the danger, for the short, swinging loose end may at any second jam or catch round the taut rope in its dance. To break any slight friction or hitch, and give the end of the rope a springing release from its belay, these last few feet should be rushed with a sharp continuous pull by two or more of the party, who must then look out for their heads! ”

“ It must never be jerked or tightened, which may pull him off his balance holds. If it appears to be [Pg 249] catching on intervening points, it must be loosened with the lightest of flicks: a strong flick will run up the rope and jerk him like the crack of a heavy whip. It must never be left loose to drag or catch close to his feet, where it will get in the way of his foothold or get round his feet or legs. If he has a long rope out, the weight alone of the rope, if we hold it anything like taut from below, will drag on him. ”

“ He hurried over to a little clump of trees and came back with a short section of a round limb.
“This will be a roller for the rope to pass over, just like a pulley,” he announced. Then he proceeded to put his plan in operation. Lying down on his face, he held the log in position, the rope passing over it. ”

“ The impact of one coming down throws the other up into the air some three or four feet. A rope is drawn above their heads like a clothes-line, and to this they cling as they go up in the air, in order to insure their equilibrium. ”

“ It was rope, and it gave way beneath my grasp. I caught at something again. It was a wheel and it turned round, but, as strange sounds, shouts, and cries reached my ears, I got hold of the cross beam, and somehow, by help of the wheel, managed to reach my old position, but crouching down and holding on for dear life.
"Below there!" shouted a familiar voice, but hollow and strange, "who is it?"
"I! Help! Help!" I gasped, now thoroughly unnerved.
"Right; can you hold on till we send you down a rope?" ”

“ They immediately threw a thick rope across the chasm, which was made fast to a neighbouring tree—another rope was fastened within a foot of it—over these, two strong hoops were sent across, connected with each other, and affixed to a strong rope, and by resting the body within these, and holding the ropes by the arms, each individual of the party was dragged in safety to the other side of the rock. ”

“ For a man below, [Pg 224] it is of more assistance that we should be able to give him the immediate pull or steady with his active rope which a free stance or body belay allows us to do, and which will prevent him slipping at all, than that, when for lack of this instantaneous touch he has slipped, his active rope should be rock-belayed, and should be thus more stonily certain of stopping him in his further fall. ”

“ The right method is to turn sideways to the rock, slightly raise the outside thigh, pass the double rope under it high up between the legs, and grip the farther lengths of rope so passed with the outside hand, palm upwards. The inside hand grasps the tightened ropes above, with bent arm, at about the level of the head. ”

“ Three guy-ropes hold the balloon steady like legs of an enormous tripod, and straight down from the netting a fourth rope hangs free. Now, imagine swinging on a rope twelve hundred feet long! They do that often for tests of flying-machines or aëroplanes—swing off the housetop, and sail away in a long, slow curve, just clearing the ground, and land on top of a windmill at the far side of the grounds. ”

“ With such energy was that strong man cannonading himself through the air that at each extremity of his increasing arc his body, standing in the swing, was almost horizontal. Should he once pass above the level of the rope's attachment he would be lost; the rope would slacken and he would fall vertically to a point as far below as he had gone above, and then the sudden tension of the rope would wrest it from his hands. ”

“ A very common position upon steep rock, where our stance is too narrow to allow of turning sideways or of belaying the rope round the body balanced above the firm outer leg, is to turn face inward, and pass the rope round some belay-point from one hand to the other. The only way to make this sound, that is, to prevent the rope in case of a slip coming upon the rock as upon a direct belay—since the grip of one hand on the active rope must be insufficient to act as an effective spring,—is to give the rope one twist round the forearm of the hand behind the belay. ”

“ In view of the fact that we were all novices at rope-climbing, each of us submitted, before starting, to having a leather thong tied under the arms, and made fast to the sliding cylinder, so that if loss of nerve or other cause had made us let go we should not have fallen into the river, but hung limply on the rope until rescued. ”

“ In the use of ropes, occasion arises, many times, where it is necessary to join two ends together in such a way that the union is as strong as the rest of the rope and still not too large or irregular to pass through a hole or pulley block. ”

“ Having nothing on but shirt, trowsers, and hat, the common sea-rig of warm weather, I had no stripping to do, and began my descent, by taking hold of the rope in each hand, and slipping down, sometimes with hands and feet round the rope, and sometimes breasting off with one hand and foot against the precipice, and holding on to the rope with the other. ”

“ If, as often happens in the case of a man who is just climbing up off our stance, the rope, owing to his having tied his waist-knot in front, or crossed the rope, makes a spiral round his leg, he should be warned at once, and we must hold the rope ready to swing it from under his foot as he raises it for the purpose. This sometimes also happens if a man is descending quickly on to our stance. ”

“ HAWSER-LAID ROPE. Is rope made in the usual way, being three or four strands of yarns laid up right-handed, or with the sun; it is used for small running rigging, as well as for standing rigging, shrouds, &c.; in the latter case it is generally tarred to keep out rain. It is supposed that this style of rope is stronger in proportion to the number of yarns than cable or water-laid rope, which is more tightly twisted, each strand being a small rope. ”

“ The moment the man below reaches safety he should untie, without losing a second. Meanwhile, the next man to come can already have tied on to the other loose end above, and be beginning his descent. While one man above holds him the other pulls up the loosened rope from the man who has finished descending. If the rope is long enough, and the men prompt and not ‘loose stone kickers,’ two men, at sufficient intervals, can be descending at the one time, on either end of the rope; while the two ropes are managed, one for each of them, by the lowerer and by the anchor man above. ”

“ It might be well also to adopt the plan of the few feet of loose end wound round the waist, to make a foot noose with, if the circumstances and position allow.
When the double rope is worn, the rear man should always carry the spare rope. If the double ropes are then, as is quite possible, twisted and jammed in the snow groove, he has yet a third chance of making free and quick connection with his leader; and unless, as I have said, both men can begin instantly to use their full strength upon distinct ropes, there is small chance that one man can get another out of an undercut crevasse. ”

“ Three ropes laid up left-handed form what is known as a cable-laid rope; four-stranded ropes are laid round a heart. Ropes are sometimes laid left-handed, but if the strands are to be laid left-handed the yarns are laid right-handed. If the parts of hemp, etc., be twisted more than is necessary to hold them together, strength is lost. Upon following the course of a yarn in a rope it will be found that, by this alternate laying, it runs nearly straight with the direction of the rope’s length. ”

“ Like all human devices, however, the guide rope, along with its advantages, has its inconveniences. Its rubbing along the uneven surfaces of the ground—over fields and meadows, hills and valleys, roads and houses, hedges and telegraph wires—gives violent shocks to the balloon. Or it may happen that the guide rope, rapidly unravelling the snarl in which it has twisted itself, catches hold of some asperity of the surface or winds itself around the trunk or branches of a tree. ”

“ One turn of the rope which bound his arms to his body was just above the wrist, and by working his hand up and down, until he rubbed the skin off against the bark of the tree, he managed to get this band a little looser, so that, by doubling his hand back, he could catch it with his thumb. Then it was only a matter of a few minutes until he had the right arm [Pg 165] free to the elbow. On the ground at his feet lay a match, which had dropped there when his captors rifled his pockets. If he could only get it he might possibly burn through some of the bands of rope. ”

“ This rope will act as a drag on the balloon, when, from any of the causes we have referred to, it tends to rise, for, in that case, it will draw up a portion of the rope, and, by thus adding to its weight, will be impeded in its upward course; and, on the other hand, when, from opposite causes, it tends to descend, it will, during every foot of its descent, have its weight, and consequently its descending tendency, diminished, by throwing on the earth the labor of supporting an additional portion of the rope. ”

“ Stoppers for ordinary running ropes are made by splicing a piece of rope to a bolt or to a hook and thimble, unlaying 3 or 4 ft., tapering it by cutting away some of the yarns, and marling it down securely, with a good whipping also on the end. It is used by taking a half-hitch round the rope which is to be hauled upon, dogging the end up in the lay and holding it by hand. The rope can come through it when hauled, but cannot go back. ”

“ This is a block of wood with a hole in it big enough to allow the line to run freely through it. The back of it is grooved to fit the rope it is lashed to. Where more than one line has to be led, a piece of board or plank with holes through it is used. A fairleader is not necessarily fastened to a rope, but is fixed in any suitable position.
Fig. 130.—Belaying Pin.
A belaying-pin with a rope made fast to it (Fig. 130) is the usual way of securing running rigging, as it can be made fast and cast off so rapidly.
[Pg 104]
Fig. ”

“ Moves all nature to gladness and mirth.”
I cannot forget the simple pleasure which this meditation on a rope gave me, carrying me back to youthful days in my native place, and to the ropewalks there, the swift spindles, the horse in the cellar turning the wheel, the spinners, each with a bunch of hemp around him hitching it to the spindle, then walking backwards, paying out the hemp through his hands with judicious care, the rope all the time growing lengthwise, down the walk. ”