Bart wrote:
Wire Rigging for Ships
Wire rigging for ships: - The Liverpool Courier says three-fourths of
all the ships now fitted out of Liverpool are rigged with wire rope. It
is described as a fourth less in weight, and not on-half the bulk of
that made of hemp, and the cost is also 25 per cent less.....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Daily Traveller, Boston, 1857 August 31.


Interesting article, I wish it had described the tests &
testing gear more thoroughly. This is about the time (mid
1850s) that England's iron production had gone through
several very quick cycles of evolution. As the author noted,
the U.S. had many unrealized advantages over England and
should be producing more... in a short while this was to happen.

And the whole business was used a few years later to
piggy-back mass production & utilization of that marvelous
hi-tech material, steel.

DSK