A rope is composed of threads of hemp, or other stuff. These threads are called _yarns_. A number of these yarns twisted together form a _strand_, and three or more strands twisted together form the rope. The ropes in ordinary use on board a vessel are composed of three strands, laid RIGHT HANDED, (1.) or, as it is called, _with the sun_. Occasionally a piece of large rope will be found laid up in four strands, also _with_ the sun. This is generally used for standing rigging, tacks, sheets, &c., and is sometimes called _shroud-laid_. A CABLE-LAID ROPE (2.) is composed of nine strands, and is made by first laying them into three ropes of three strands each, _with_ the sun, and then laying the three ropes up together into one, left-handed, or _against_ the sun. Thus, cable-laid rope is like three small common ropes laid up into one large one. Formerly, the ordinary three-stranded right-hand rope was called _hawser-laid_, and the latter _cable-laid_, and they will be found so distinguished in the books; but among sea-faring men now, the terms _hawser-laid_ and _cable-laid_ are applied indiscriminately to nine-strand rope, and the three stranded, being the usual and ordinary kind of rope, has no particular name, or is called right-hand rope. Right-hand rope must be coiled _with_ the sun, and cable-laid rope _against_ the sun. SPUNYARN is made by twisting together two or more yarns taken from old standing rigging, and is called two-yarn or three-yarn spunyarn, according to the number of yarns of which it is composed. Junk, or old rigging, is first unlaid into strands, and then into yarns, and the best of these yarns made up into spunyarn, which is used for worming, serving, seizing, &c. Every merchant vessel carries a spunyarn-winch, for the manufacturing of this stuff, and in making it, the wheel is turned _against_ the sun, which lays the stuff up with the sun. WORMING a rope, is filling up the divisions between the strands, by passing spunyarn along them, to render the surface smooth for parcelling and serving. PARCELLING a rope is wrapping narrow strips of canvass about it, well tarred, in order to secure it from being injured by rain-water lodging between the parts of the service when worn. The parcelling is put on _with_ the lay of the rope. SERVICE is the laying on of spunyarn, or other small stuff, in turns round the rope, close together, and hove taut by the use of a serving-board for small rope, and serving-mallet for large rope. Small ropes are sometimes served without being wormed, as the crevices between the strands are not large enough to make the surface very uneven; but a large rope is always wormed and parcelled before being served. The service is put on _against_ the lay of the rope. SPLICING, is putting the ends of ropes together by opening the strands and placing them into one another, or by putting the strands of the ends of a rope between those of the bight.