Spinnaker

“ As he recalled this lucky fact a heavenly smile overspread his handsome features.
"It's a splendid notion," said Spink. "I feel as proud of it as a dog with two tails! I wish those chaps at the Foreign Office were here now; they would enjoy it better than a play."
He stepped to his bag as lightly as a Polar bear after a sleeping seal, and when he found the twine he tied the end of it to Ward's leg. "Ward at one end and Providence at the other," said Spink, with a grin. "Oh, won't he be surprised!"
And the skipper went back to the boat, paying out the twine as he went. ”

“ There can be very little doubt that the appearance of James Spink with his boat on this critical occasion was the means of preventing the loss of lives at the rock this morning. When these circumstances, some years afterwards, came to the knowledge of the Board, a small pension was ordered to our faithful pilot, then in his seventieth year; and he still continues to wear the uniform clothes and badge of the Lighthouse service. Spink is a remarkably strong man, whose tout ensemble is highly characteristic of a North-country fisherman. ”

“ I do not know from which spinners the various parts of the net are formed.
The spinning mammulæ, or spinnerets, are represented in Fig. 6. They form a little group upon the lower surface of the abdomen, near its hinder end. In a state of rest, they are closely approximated, but when in use they are more or less widely spread apart like so many fingers or short legs. Indeed, there is reason to regard the spinners as corresponding in essential structure with the true legs of the spider. They are jointed or articulated, and capable of considerable movement. ”

“ These webs are exceedingly elastic, for they have to resist the power of the wind. When the web has been long built, and has become stretched, they will sometimes go and fetch a little piece of wood, which they hang by a thread, and haul it to a spot where they think it will steady their structure.
The threads of spiders are produced from an organ called the "spinneret," which is placed at the extremity of the body. The spinnerets are arranged in pairs, and are four, six, or eight in number. [105]
The spider generally works at its web with its head down, lowering itself by its thread. ”

“ Spinners. Now the Nephila plumipes possesses at least three pairs of spinners. Of these, two are much larger than the third, which indeed does not appear till they are separated. From the posterior of the two largest pairs seems to proceed the white, and from the anterior the yellow silk, while from the small intermediate pair seem to proceed very fine filaments of a pale-blue color, the use of which is to envelop the prey after it has been seized and killed, being drawn out by the bristles near the tips of the spider's hinder legs. ”

“ Mrs. Northover stared to see the nature of a Spinner's duties and the ease with which she controlled the great, pulsing, roaring frame of a hundred spindles. Sabina's eyes were everywhere; her hands were never still; her feet seemed to dance a measure to the thunder of the Frame. Now she marked a roving reel aloft that was running out, and in a moment she had broken the sliver, swept away the empty reel and hung up a full one. Then she drew the new sliver down to the point of the break and, in a moment, the two merged and the thread ran on. ”

“ I know of no creature which, for its size, is so terribly armed as the Jacht Spinnekop; practically the whole of its huge head is transformed into two pairs of terrible nippers of quite extraordinary size and power. These nippers run straight forward, the eyes being placed just where they emerge above. Each pair of nippers has its own independent nipping action, and, in addition, each has an independent up-and-down and backward-and-forward motion, giving the jaws an awful tearing power, so that, as soon as the prey is seized, it is ripped into pieces. ”

“ Carried away by histrionic enthusiasm, Spinks brings his fist down violently on the precise spot where a table ought to be, but is not, standing. As a natural result, he hits himself with much force on his leg. The others laugh, and the Ladies turn away giggling, feeling that they ought to be sympathetic. The unfortunate Spinks hurts himself considerably, and is furious. ”

“ In spite of the fog it was not difficult to see that she was a fine new boat of about two thousand tons, built and fitted, as was pretty obvious from her derricks, for a fast freight boat. It was equally obvious that the whole crew had evacuated her in a panic, for Spink found the skipper's berth with the bed-clothes on the floor, along with a sad and derelict pair of trousers. The 'old man' had evidently been in his bunk instead of being on the bridge, and, so far as Spink could see, he had stayed to grab nothing but the ship's papers, without which there can be no maritime salvation. ”

“ Spink sighed.
"I'm the most unfortunate man that ever commanded any blasted hooker that ever sailed the seas," he said. "Day tries me more than you do, Ward. There are times I regret I ever knew him. I must have been brought up badly to have such a disposition as I have. Well, well, it can't be helped, a man is what he was meant to be, there is no get-away from that. But I should admire to see you plug him. Oh, I say, it's fairly thick, ain't it?"
It was a deal thicker than much of the pea-soup served up in the Swan, though Spink rather prided himself on the way the men were fed in her. ”

“ The prettiest of all the birds is a little plump, quail-like rock-pigeon or spinifex-pigeon, a dear little shiny, brown fellow with a tuft on his head. They arrive at the water suddenly and unexpectedly from behind rocks and trees, and stand about considering; then one, more venturesome than the rest, runs quickly down to drink, and is followed by a string of others; then they run up again ever so fast, and strut about cooing and spreading their crests — one seldom sees them fly; when they do they rise straight up, and then dart away close to the ground and drop suddenly within a few yards. ”

“ The Swan had an air of thorough discomfort, and in spite of it was steaming into the west at her best speed of nine knots an hour.
It is no wonder that Spink and Ward quarrelled; there was hardly a soul on board who was not in a bad temper. Nothing disturbs seamen as much as fog, and the fact that Spink refused to be disturbed by it made it all the worse for the others. Ward was distinctly nervous, and let the fog play on his nerves. He saw steamers ahead that had no existence, and heard fog-horns that were nothing but the sound of his own blood in his ears. ”

“ As both Ward and Day admitted, he might be hard to get along with, but he had nerves which would have done credit to a bull. Most skippers in the Western Ocean get into the state of mind which sees disaster before it is in sight, and if they don't take to drink it is because they die of continued scares. Spink feared nothing under heaven, and though he sometimes drank more than was good for him, it was not because he wanted it, but because he liked it. ”

“ Ironsyde came to the works one morning to watch a new Twist Frame and a new operator. The single strand yarn for material from the spinners was coming to the Twist Frame to be turned into twines and fishing lines. Four full bobbins from the spinning machine went to each spindle of the Twist Frame, and from it emerged a strong 'four-ply.' It was a machine more complicated than the spinner; and, as only a good billiard player can appreciate the cleverness of a great player, so only a spinner might have admired the rare technical skill of the woman who controlled the Twist Frame. ”

“ Trivial details, presenting themselves in really dramatic moments, may impress the mind with extraordinary aptness. At this very moment Spinrobin's eyes noticed in the corner of wall and door a tiny spider's web, with the spider itself hanging in the center of its little net--shaking. ”

“ Wilder has given much study to the subject of ways and means, and has, he thinks, perfected a plan by which one of the strong-web spinners (Nephila plumipes) may be trained to weave as well as to eat in our service. By this plan each spinner is to have her own home, a wire ring surrounded by water. She is to be fed with flies, which, alas! are not to reduce the hosts of the air, but to be bred for her, and every day she is to be placed in the stocks and compelled to give up her silk. ”

“ Each spinner has a bundle of hemp round his waist, the double or bight being in front and the ends crossing each other behind. With his left hand he draws out a few fibres and fastens them on one of the hooks with his right, which holds a piece of thick woollen cloth—he grasps these fibres, a boy then turns the wheel and the spinner walks backwards—the man draws out more and more fibres from his bundle as he recedes, and the twist which is given to them by the rotation of the hooks on the wheel makes each length of fibre entangle itself among those previously drawn out ”

“ It exhibits the process of spinning, at the moment when the spinner has drawn out a sufficient length of thread from the distaff, and just previous to the act of taking it out of the slit on the top of the spindle, to wind it on that instrument. It is said by classic writers that the spindle was always, when in use, accompanied by the distaff, as "an indispensable part of the apparatus." ”

“ The six subspecies of spinifer can be separated into two groups on the basis of the juvenal pattern. One group (subspecies spinifer, hartwegi and asper) has a pattern of dark spots or ocelli of various sizes on the carapace, whereas the other group (subspecies pallidus, guadalupensis and emoryi) has a pattern of small white dots or tubercles on the carapace. The two groups differ also in the manner in which the mottled and blotched pattern first appears on the carapace of females. ”

“ Since my father and Henry Ironsyde's father established these mills, which are now justly famous in the county, the natural result has happened and women have come here in considerable numbers. Women preponderate in spinning places, because the work of spinning yarn has always been in their hands from time immemorial. And they tend our modern machinery as deftly as of old they twirled the distaff and worked the spinning-wheel; and as steadily as they used to trudge the rope walks and spin, like spiders, from the masses of flax or hemp at their waists. ”

“ The southernmost populations of all species of softshells may be active throughout the year, assuming temperature to be the limiting factor.
There are few published statements relative to the length of the annual period of activity; all records refer to spinifer. In Lake Maxinkuckee, northern Indiana, Newman (1906:128) wrote that individuals were first seen in early April on the lake shore in a weak condition with neck and legs extended, and were easily captured. Lesueur (1827:262) wrote that spinifer in Indiana appears toward the end of April. ”

“ In the first spinning device, a mass of fibre was arranged on a forked stick, and, as drawn therefrom by hand, it was twisted between the fingers and wound on a spindle. During the reign of Henry VIII. of England, however, the spinning-wheel replaced the distaff and spindle, and in every cottage and palace it became an indispensable article of household equipment. The young women in all walks of life were taught to spin. Spinning became the female occupation of the age, and it is interesting to note that the modern term spinster, meaning an unmarried woman of advanced age, here had its origin. ”

“ Several individuals of spinifer were seen in the Flint River (near Bainbridge, Georgia) , which had a swift current in a wide, deep channel, sandy or sand-silt banks, few brush piles along shore and many oölitic, submergent snags on an otherwise sandy bottom; the water was exceedingly clear and permitted water-goggling (this habitat has been obliterated by a dam on the Apalachicola River) . ”

“ Indians Spinning Coarse Thread.
A process of undoubted antiquity, and occasionally followed by modern Indians, is shown in the above engraving. The spinner holds in the left hand, horizontally, a short piece of hollow reed or cane, within which the spindle is twirled by the fingers and thumb of the right hand. Sometimes a cross stick or handle is attached, as represented in the figure. A second person performs the part of a distaff, which, as the thread lengthens, recedes from the spinner, or the spinner from it. A section of this primitive apparatus is separately portrayed. ”

“ For convenience, all softshells having locality data from states east of the Mississippi River are referred to spinifer, recognizing that intergradation occurs with hartwegi over a broad area paralleling the Mississippi River. The type locality of spinifer is in an area where most turtles do not have the larger ocelli (diameter of seven to ten mm. on adult males) ; however, some individuals from the Wabash River (UMMZ 63523, adult male, plastron 11.5 cm. in length, ocelli diameter seven mm.) agree with more "typical" spinifer to the east. ”

“ I have shown that males of spinifer from Lake Texoma, Oklahoma, and scattered localities in Texas and Louisiana are sexually mature when they reach a plastral length of 9.0-10.0 centimeters. Adult males have distinct, convoluted, non-pigmented vasa deferentia and elongate testes, the maximal measurements of which are about 10 by 30 millimeters. ”