Editing Zip line (section)

==History==
[[Cable transport#Early aerial tramways|Ropeways or aerial cables]] have been used as a method of [[transport]] in some mountainous countries for more than 2,000 years, possibly starting in China, India and Japan as early as 250 BC,<ref name=lowtech>{{cite web|url=http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/01/aerial-ropeways-automatic-cargo-transport.html|title=Aerial ropeways: automatic cargo transport for a bargain|publisher=LOW-TECH MAGAZINE, Doubts on progress and technology|access-date=28 August 2014}}</ref> remaining in use in some remote areas in China such as [[Salween River|Nujiang (Salween)]] valley in [[Yunnan]] as late as 2015 before being replaced by bridges.<ref name=":6">{{cite web|url=http://www.gokunming.com/en/blog/item/3444/bye_bye_nujiang_ziplines|title=Bye-bye Nujiang ziplines|publisher=GoKunming|access-date=2 December 2015}}</ref> Not all of these structures were assisted by [[gravity]], so not all fitted the definition of the zip-line.<ref name=lowtech/>

Various technological advances in Europe in the [[Middle Ages]] improved the power-line's ropeways, some of which were still assisted by gravity.<ref name=lowtech/>

The first recorded use of the zip-line as a form of entertainment was possibly in 1739, when [[Robert Cadman]], a [[steeplejack]] and [[Tightrope walking|rope slider]], died when descending from [[Shrewsbury|Shrewsbury's]] [[St Mary's Church, Shrewsbury|St Mary's Church]] when his rope snapped. In literature, one appears in [[H. G. Wells]]'s 1897 novel ''[[The Invisible Man]]'' as part of a [[Whit Monday]] fair: "On the village green an inclined string, down which, clinging the while to a pulley-swung handle, one could be hurled violently against a sack at the other end, came in for considerable favour among the adolescent..."<ref>{{cite book|title="The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance"|author=H.G. Wells|date=1897|publisher=C. Arthur Pearson Ltd.|location=London|page=77|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6HEedUnVEt0C}}</ref>

Some sources attribute the development of zip-lines used today as a vacation activity to the Tyrolean traverses developed for mountaineering purposes.<ref name=OutdoorFunStore/>

In the Australian [[outback]], zip-lines were sometimes used for delivering necessities to people working in or on the other side of a valley, and they may have been used in conflicts by [[Australian Army|Australian troops]] to deliver food, mail and even ammunition to forward positions.<ref name=zipconsult>{{cite web|url=http://ziplineconsultant.com/all-about-zip-lines/|title=All about Zip Lines|website=Zipline Consultant|date=2018|access-date=21 January 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180818041837/http://ziplineconsultant.com/all-about-zip-lines/|archive-date=18 August 2018}}</ref><ref name=OutdoorFunStore/><ref name=":8">Although these claims are repeated on several sites, an original reliable source of the information has not been found.</ref>