Page 328 - The Ashley Book of Knots

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CHAPTER 26: MISCELLANEOUS HOLDF ASTS , I I 1 11

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Hitch your 'wagon to a star.

RALPH W ALno EMERSON

The appliances of this chapter verge on the mechanical in nature.

Many of them grip the rope, instead of the rope's gripping the

appliance. They are designed either to make a quicker or an easier

coupling, or else a simpler one that the inexpert cannot go wrong

with. The greater proportion of them were made for the use of

either the horseman or the housewife, and considerable ingenuity

has been expended in their construction. Some of the horse-and-

carriage fittings have been sketched from memory. Others were

salvaged from the family garage that had started out in life as stable .........

and carriage house.

It may seem unprofitable to resurrect such material, much of

which is obsolete today. But knotting is merely the application of

certain mechanical principles, and a principle itself can hardly be-

come obsolete. As conditions change, new applications are bound

to appear. The fact that something is not required today is no reason

for believing that it will not be needed tomorrow.

Latchings and euphroes, that one time were used at sea, of late

ears cannot be found serving their original purposes on shipboard.

ut they have now become circus stand-bys. Toggles, at one time

common aboard ship, are now to be found on balloons and para-

chutes.

Different ways of making a rope fast to blocks and hooks were

given in the last chapter. Here are illustrated a number of smaller ,
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snap hooks that snap into beckets and eyes of various sorts.

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