Climbing-Implement Item Number: E168806-1 from the National Museum of Natural History

Notes

Illustrated in U.S. National Museum Annual Report for 1894, Fig. 14, p. 281, under incorrect Catalogue No. 168807. Identified on pp. 280-281 as a tree-climibing device of cedar bark. "A number of long strips, or ribbons, of cedar bark are doubled in two sets so that by their middles, for a foot or more, they are twisted into a two-ply rope forming a stout loop, and this is wrapped with sennit of cedar bark so as to hold the loop in place. The ribbons are then laid out edge to edge for the distance of 3 feet or more and used as a warp across which, by open zigzag, a continuous line of twine weaving is carried from one end to the other. By this operation the ends are gathered in and wrapped with a three-ply braid. The remaining part of the ribbons are then split or shredded and twisted into a fine three-ply rope. The loop in this example serves the same purpose as the cleat in ... [E168806-0]. The broad band is the boatswain's chair and the finely twisted rope passes around the tree through the loop and is made fast by half hitches." Object has a tag with it indicating it was "Drawn by M M Hildebrant Sep 29, 1894", which presumably was the drawing done for the illustration in the 1894 USNM Annual Report.