"Seven one-thousandths, three one-thousandths, one one-thousandth--one record after another was passed. At last a wire was drawn that measured one four-thousandth of an inch in diameter--twelve times finer than the hair on your head. The spider, so long counted a master workman, had been outdone." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: John A. Roebling FOUNDER OF JOHN A. ROEBLING'S SONS COMPANY] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ OUTSPINNING THE SPIDER THE STORY OF WIRE AND WIRE ROPE By John Kimberly Mumford PUBLISHED BY Robert L. Stillson Co. New York ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright, 1921, by ROBERT L. STILLSON COMPANY NEW YORK ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Outspinning the Spider CHAPTER I WIRE AND MODERN LIFE It is the wire age. Modern life, in all its intricate bearings, runs on wire. Wire everywhere; in the heavens above, the earth beneath and the waters under the earth. In all the legerdemain of science, which has put nature in bondage, wire is the indispensable agent. A curious, slow, finical little trade at which the smiths of forgotten races toiled and pottered and ruined their eyesight for unnumbered thousands of years has become, within less than a century, under the spur of modern need and modern driving power, the pack-bearer of the world and the mainspring of every activity from the cradle to the grave. Wire still makes toys and gewgaws as it always did, but it is no longer the plaything of vanity alone. Cancel wire and wire rope and their concomitant, "flat wire," from the inventory of human assets tomorrow, and the world would stop stock-still. [Sidenote: "WIRE AND THE COMMUTER"]