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I happened on a book about settling the West after the Civil War. In a description of the wagons by a military officer of one of the forts along the way, I found the name of a crucially important part of the wagons. The thimble-skein. I challenge you to find out what it was.
Rats. Turns out to be easy to find. But you'd never guess.
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Dr. Bill, if you'd save me the time, I'd appreciate it. My guess would be some kind of water container.
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Dear Jackie: Forgive me for teasing a bit. No, it had nothing to do with the water supply. But it was like a couple cups. Four sets of them.
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Looking for etymology of thimble, I found this:
Thumb: (Old English) The thumb is etymologically the 'swollen' part -
an allusion to its greater thickness than the other fingers. Along with
its relatives German daumen and Dutch duim, it goes back to a
prehistoric West Germanic thûmon. This in turn can be traced to
Indo-European tum- 'swell', which also produced English tumour, and
tumult. The b in thumb appeared in the early Middle English period,
when it was still a two syllable word (thumbe), and at first was
pronounced, but it has fallen silent over the centuries. The words
thigh and thimble have related origins.
In site of nautical terms, I found this:
THIMBLE. An iron ring, having a groove formed in its outer circumference. Thimbles are fixed on the cringles of sails where iron hooks are used, as the hook of a tackle, &c.
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Dear wwh,
Nautical terms are lovely. I don't know squat about them, but whenever I hear them, they all sound lovely.
I would love to know exactly what a futtock shroud is. Funny term, that.
And what are those little clamps called that ropes are wrapped around? The ones that sort of look like little sharks on two feet--or a bit like andirons?
We had some fun here a while back with "Three sheets to the wind."
And a drunken sailor is a drooping sail?
Byron called his Newfoundland "Boatswain"--and I always thought that was nice, too.
There she blows!
Wordwind
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Joke on me. I thought the "thimble-skein" were two parts of the axle and wheel of the wagon. It turn out both words mean the same thing, a metal tube on end of axle to strenthen it and also minimize friction.
The original text said each wagon had a tar bucket, and frequently wheel had to be taken off the axle so lubricant could be applied. I wonder what the source of the tar was. I should think salvaged cooking fat could have been used.
Skein
(Skein) n. [OE. skeyne, OF. escaigne, F. écagne, probably of Celtic origin; cf. Ir. sgainne, Gael. sgeinnidh thread, small
twine; or perhaps the English word is immediately from Celtic.]
1. A quantity of yarn, thread, or the like, put up together, after it is taken from the reel, — usually tied in a sort of knot.
A skein of cotton yarn is formed by eighty turns of the thread round a fifty-four inch reel.
2. (Wagon Making) A metallic strengthening band or thimble on the wooden arm of an axle. Knight.
Dear WW: I know of several sites for nautical terms. I'll PM them to you.
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Bill:
Tar comes from destructive distillation of wood, coal, or peat. It's very thick and very oily, and makes a halfway decent lubricant, particularly as it heats up.
Animal fat would probably break down under pressures such as you would find at the bearing surfaces in a wagon. OK in an emergency, but certainly not acceptable for a long haul.
TEd
TEd
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There are several sites about "naval stores" but CK might get upset if I posted the URLs. Naval stores included a fairly wide spectrum of products made by destructive distillation of pine wood including stumps that were absolutely essential to wooden sailing ships. But none of the sites even mentioned use as wagon wheel lubricant, which surprised me.
The sites about "tar kilns" reminded me of a street by that name in outskirts of New Bedford, which used to puzzle me.
Natives of North Carolina were called "Tar-heels" because so many were employed in that business.
The word "kiln" reminds me that the old timers never pronounced the "n", although my dictionary's second pronunciation does. I did not know before that the word was derived from Latin.
iln kil, kiln
n.
ME kylne OE cylne L culina, cookstove, kitchen6 a furnace or oven for drying, burning, or baking something, as bricks, grain, or pottery
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Animal fat would probably break down under pressures such as you would find at the bearing surfaces in a wagon...
Lost in the mists of time, but I thought I remember reading about this being one of the reasons whale blubber/oil was so prized in earlier ages...? I could look it up, but Bill will get there first ;)
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Dear Mav: Thanks for the suggestion. Whale oil was indeed used as a lubricant, but it was so valuable for indoor lighting, it would have been too expensive and too hard to obtain for the wagoneers going West who started many miles from the ocean. I remember once reading that watchmakers used it.
The whale oil was principally exported to Britain where it was used for lighting and as an
industrial lubricant. The whale-bone or 'baleen' became the mainstay of the fashion
industry, being used to make skirt hoops and corsets.
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