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The first rope, we may mention, was laid in lengths of about a mile spliced together, while the present rope was supplied in long lengths of 7½ miles each, so that the number of splices is greatly reduced.
Meanwhile some one ascertained our position with a sextant, these observations being marked on the cable map and entered in the log to facilitate the work of locating and repairing the splice in case of accident at that particular point, though it must be confessed that these splices often proved more sound than the original cable.
Before the machinery could be stopped, some fathoms of cable had become entangled among the wheels and destroyed. This part having been cut out, however, and new splices made, the paying-out process was resumed. "I'll turn in now and have a snooze, Robin," said Ebenezer Smith, "and you had better do the same; you look tired."
The books were all for the eyes of sailors, and were sorted by chance. Knots and Splices, Typee, Know Your Own Ship, the South Pacific Directory, and Castaway on the Auckland Islands. There were many of them, and they were in that fortuitous and attractive order. The back of every volume had to be read, though the light was bad. On one wall between the windows a specimen chart was framed.
It is made in the same manner as the short splice, but instead of splicing the two ends together, the end of the rope is unlaid and then bent around and spliced into its own strands of the standing part, as shown in the illustration. Once the short and long splices are mastered, all other splices, as well as many useful variations, will come easy.
He had none of the fawning obsequiousness which is so common to the Hindoo, but was a merry laughing fellow, with a keen love of sport and a great appreciation of humour. His gun was fearfully and wonderfully made. It was a long, heavy flint gun, with a tremendously heavy barrel, and the stock all splices and splinters, tied in places with bits of string.
The wires should always be joined layer to layer and each splice very tightly taped in order to get as much insulating compound around each splice as possible in the limited space. The splices should be "broken" as much as possible, so as to avoid having adjoining splices coming over each other.
A good SEAMAN is able to make all the various knots, splices, and other arrangements in hempen or wire rope, without which a ship cannot be rigged; he can make a sail, send up or down yards and masts, and do many other things, the sum total of which need several years of steady application to learn, although a good seaman is ever learning. Such seamen are fast becoming extinct.
The weather had by this time become very warm and instead of wearing the thick clothing with which they had started, the Elmers found the very thinnest of their last summer's things all that they could bear. Mark had almost forgotten his sea-sickness, and spent much of his time with Jan Jansen, who taught him to make knots and splices, to box the compass and to steer.
Tests for copper resistance should also be made to determine if the splices are electrically perfect; an imperfect splice may cause considerable trouble. In telegraph and telephone cables the conductors should be of very soft copper, for in stripping the conductor of insulation it is very easy to nick the wire, and if of hard drawn copper open wires will be the result.
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