Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/96

86 Through this loop (F) the ball (E) is passed also from above downward (as shown at G), and pulled taut to the left thumb, where the knot is felt to turn part way around, and is found to be a perfectly formed square knot as shown in Fig. 4, at G.

This second tier of meshes completed, the operator shifts the ball to the left hand and the mesh-block to the right, and makes the third tier from right to left. The final tier with its clews and selvage are made by reversing the process described for beginning the net.



This method of meshing, though unfamiliar, has several distinct advantages over the more usual method; of which one inheres in the knot itself, two in the line of greater simplicity in the mode of manufacture, and one in the possibility of easily producing irregular designs for particular purposes—that is to say, of netting pockets and pounds without interruption of the thread.

The advantage in the knot is one which will immediately be apparent to those who have given attention to the study of knots for the reef knot is incontestably the simplest and most secure means of joining two parts of cord. The advantages in the mode of manufacture are that one implement, the netting-needle, is dispensed with, and that the net may be made of a single cord continuous throughout, and thus is of equal strength in every part. It would be tedious to go into the details of making pounds and pockets in a net; it is more simple than appears, and the thread continues without a break through the net and insert-piece as well. It is possible that some one skilled m mechanical arts may find in this device the suggestion of a mode of simplifying the machinery at present used in the manufacture of nets for commercial purposes.