Page 281 - J. C. Turner "History and Science of Knots"

272 History and Science of Knots

Mr Ashley was born in 1881, in the whaling port of New Bedford, Mas-
sachusetts. He had two ruling passions all his life, namely marine painting
and knot tying. His knot encyclopedia resulted from forty years of looking for,
trying out, and thinking up new knots; and he devoted eleven years to the
writing of it. The 7000 drawings are from his own hand, and he enhances the
actual knot-diagrams with tiny sketches of people, ships, ladders, landscapes
etc. To illustrate, we give in Fig. 1 his drawings from p. 212 which show how
to tie a Jury Mast Knot. (N.B. This is one of the knots on the front cover of
this (our) book.)
The following summary of the contents of the book tells how Ashley clas-
sified knots into 41 chapters.
On Knots, chapter 1, introduces history and general methods of construc-
tion of knots. Then Occupational Knots attempts a classification by `occupa-
tion': thus he covers knots as used by the Archer, the Artilleryman, the Artist,
the Angler, and so on, through to the Weaver, the Well Digger, the Whaleman,
the Whipper and the Yachtsman.
The remaining 39 chapters deal with knots in topics as follows: Knob
Knots, from single-strand stoppers to multi-strand buttons; Single- Double-
and Multiple-Loop Knots; The Noose; Knots tied in the Bight; Clove Hitch and
other Crossing Knots; Binding Knots; The Turk's Head; Bends; Shroud Knots
(multi-strand Bends); Belaying and Making Fast; Hitches of various kinds;
Hooks, Beckets, and Toggles; Miscellaneous Holdfasts; Occasional Knots; Lash-
ings and Slings; The Monkey's Fist and other Knot Coverings; Flat or Two-
dimensional Knots; Fancy Knots; Square Knotting; Tricks and Puzzles; Long
and Short Splices (multi-strand Bends); Eye and Odd Splices; Sinnets-Chain
and Crown, Plat, Solid; Marlingspike Seamanship.
This description of the contents of Ashley's Book of Knots serves to show
the extent of service that knots give to mankind, and brings home the enormous
variety of their forms, constructions and functions.

4.3. `Encyclopedia of Rawhide and Leather Braiding'
This book, written by Bruce Grant and published by Cornell Maritime Press,
Maryland in 1972 (still in print) claims to be `the most definitive work on the
subject [of leather braiding] in the English language.' In 528 pages, Grant gives
diagrams (on right-hand pages) and text (on left-hand pages) which catalogues
and give excellent instruction for the tying of a very large number of braids
and leather-braided objects. The diagrams are largely hand-drawn (see the
example in Fig. 2), but there are also many photographs.