tear the dredge to pieces after three or four tries, you had better pull it up, 

 if you can. Back up and pull from the other direction, if you have difficulty 

 getting it off the bottom. Occasionally it is impossible to get it loose, but 

 in the end it is worth the trouble and expense. 



Taking Care of the Hauls. When a dredge load is brought up, it should 

 be screened. If the dredge is made of screen, this can be done before 

 bringing it aboard. Otherwise the load must be dumped and screened with 

 small screens. If this is not convenient, just empty the dredge into a sack 

 and take it home to screen. Gravel and rocks should be taken home and 

 washed through screens of varying meshes to separate the material accord- 

 ing to size and thus make sorting easier. 



The bottom off the West Coast is spotted with small patches of very 

 good bottom surrounded by large areas of poor bottom with relatively few 

 shells in it. For this reason, it is very important to keep track of the good 

 hauls and the poor hauls. To do this it is probably best to keep each haul 

 separate until it is dried and sorted. If several haub> are from about the 

 same spot and are apparently the same material, there is no need to keep 

 them separate. After the material is dried and sorted, what to do with it 

 is up to the individual. 



We place everything from the same locality, approximate depth, and 

 character of bottom together. Thus the material that we have dredged off 

 Redondo Beach, California, is divided into 10, 25, 50, 100, or 150 fathoms; 

 mud, sand, gravel or rocks, depending on which it is closest to. Each col- 

 lector will have to make up his mind according to how much time he has 

 for bookkeeping. 



Unless you are not interested in the semi-microscopic shells, do not 

 throw any of the material away until after it is dried and re-sorted, as it 

 is practically impossible to see while the material is wet. We usually 

 screen the material, sort out what we can see readily, dry it and then 

 re-sort it at our leisure. This latter sorting can even wait until winter if 

 you are pressed for time. 



I have suggested that it is a good idea to keep track of the good dredge 

 hauls and the poor, so that you can later return and dredge more of the 

 good material. However, finding the same place again is quite a problem. 

 Trying to find a good dredging spot that you hit by accident is like being 

 the blind man in "blind man's buff." When you get a good dredge haul 

 be sure to take all possible bearings on objects on shore. Try to get two 

 objects on a line from two or three different directions, take a few compass 

 bearings on points, etc. and any other bearings po",sible. The next time you 

 are out maybe you can get within a quarter of a mile of the spot you are 

 looking for. 



If you use iron cable for dredge line and use a small boat, you cannot 

 trust a compass for bearings. They are bad enough for close work on any 

 small boat without having a lot of changing iron in the boat. Probably the 

 best way to determine your location is to u.-^e a sextant and a three- arm 



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