Report of the Board of Shell Fish Commissioners 37 

 THE TONGING METHOD. 



STATIONS SELECTED AND MARKED. 



The local oysterman, appointed in accordance witfc Section 

 88 of the Hainan Oyster Culture Law to point out the oyster 

 grounds to the Commission, usually selects the stations for 

 examinations. He is in a position, while manipulating the 

 chain apparatus on the survey boat, 7 to find the parts of the 

 bottom which show its average condition. A spot having been 

 selected for examination by the local oysterman, it is marked 

 with one of the small flag buoys prepared for this purpose. 

 Each buoy is marked with a number and when cast over at a 

 station its number and its exact position on the line of sound- 

 ings is recorded in the sounding record book. 8 Positions for 

 examinations have sometimes been selected by a member of the 

 Commission on the boat from which the examinations are made 

 but the selection of positions in this way is avoided as much 

 as possible since such positions are in no way connected with 

 the lines of soundings and the results obtained at them there- 

 fore lack the value of comparative purposes which is pos- 

 sessed by those obtained at positions situated on a long line of 

 soundings. 9 When positions were selected from the boat mak- 

 ing the examinations they were located by a special set of 

 angles and were later plotted on the survey boat sheets. 



BOAT ANCHORED. . 



The boats- 10 from which the examinations were made fol- 

 lowed the survey boat over the grounds to be examined and 

 anchored over the spots previously marked with the small flag 

 buoys by the local oysterman. 



7See page 116. sSee page 117. See page 118. 



ioFour boats, hired from oystermen, were used in making the exam- 

 inations of the oyster grounds of Anne Arundel County. From the fact 

 that these boats had to be rowed or towed from place to place the num- 

 ber of examinations it was possible to make was not so large as was 

 desired. Toward the end of the season, therefore, a launch was hired 

 to complete the work, in Anne Arundel County and, before beginning 

 the survey in Somerset County, the Commission purchased a speedy 

 gasoline launch, the "Investigator," for this work. 



