This process is in many manufactories performed by machinery, but the hand-made yarn is decidedly the best. When a spinning walk is in full operation, there are twelve spinners at different parts of its length, in three groups, each group being distant three or four hundred feet from the next adjoining, and all the twelve hooks or whirls of the wheel being engaged at once. As the yarns are twisted, they are wound in large bundles upon reels, each reel containing about two-hundred-and-fifty rounds of yarn. If the hemp should be used for the manufacture of tarred rope—the yarn is now tarred—the reels of yarn are first warped into a haul, that is, the yarns are unwound from the reel and stretched out straight and parallel, and assembled together in a large group, called “a haul,” consisting of between three and four hundred yarns, each a hundred feet long. The haul is dipped into a copper of hot tar, and, being dragged through a grip or gauge, the superfluous tar is squeezed out; by the aid of a capstan the haul is gradually drawn forward until the whole has passed through the tar kettle. The next process in the formation of a rope is the making of the strand. This may be composed of any number of yarns—in a cable twelve inches in circumference there are eighty yarns in a strand, and in the very largest rope cables three hundred and sixty; however, few if any ropes are now made of the last dimensions, as chain cables have superseded hempen cables of large size; the latter being, in the present day, seldom more than twelve inches in circumference, except for Her Majesty’s navy.