Yeah, there's no walking involved in the cotton-screwing. Just arm action. Once a worker's bar/handle (I still can't make it out) goes beyond a certain degree of rotation, he must either 1) perform the opposite action of what he was just doing, or 2) grab the next bar that comes around. Mind you, I'm still just guessing here.

Any chance we could access the other pictures you've seen, Charley? I fully understand is they are private or in an incompatible medium; just asking.

Wouldn't it be cool, though to get one of these jackscrews set up, say, at Mystic, to give it a try? I am surprised these things aren't sitting around somewhere; perhaps they are, but with the Internet nowadays, one sometimes feels that if he can't find it there, he won't find it anywhere! Since Mobile's maritime museum was a wash when I went there, maybe a trip to Galveston is in order!

A more relevant issue to the present thread, however, is the irksome line in Nordhoff about how the pull on the screw came at the END of the refrain; I was just reminded of that whilst reading the "Maringo" thread. I don't like it, because it messes with the theory that I currently agree with (2 pulls, one on each "fire", as Charley parsed it). I must admit that, I am so content with this theory now (it seems to explain a lot), that I want to disregard Nordhoff's wording as something too imprecise. Yet still, it is there, just as much as Dana's comment.