ideal in that it was composed of stones, few larger than a man's fist. It was 

 a simple matter to bring up a dredge full of these rocks and in them was a 

 rich fauna of shells, deep water chitons, interesting in every way. We took 

 several new species from this locality. But at times the algae would get so 

 heavy over this gravel that an ordinary piece of our gear would simply 

 slide along over and through the heavy algae (composed largely of 

 Acrosorium) and never get to the gravel. We found that a dredge with a 

 circular opening and plenty of weight in front of it would cut on through 

 and get some of the stones for us. 



Incidentally, that last sentence is probably the most important in this 

 whole rambling article; more dredgers have failed because of their reluc- 

 tance to hang a really heavy log chain on the front of the dredge bridle 

 than for any other reason. It is impossible to dredge unless you get the 

 dredge on the bottom and keep it there. 



Of course, cable is the thing to use in any kind of deep water work, 

 but some very fine things can be brought up by the use of a small boat 

 and rope line, with the limitation that when you are working in more 

 than 50 fathoms you have almost a boat full of rope. The drum on 

 the winch I now have contains 7,200 feet of good wire cable. It takes up 

 no more room than one spool of ^2 i^^ch manila rope. Another tip may be in 

 order: rope is almost unbelievably buoyant, and to get it down is your 

 problem. We used to take along a box of small window weights, about 

 4 or 5 inches long, and fasten one of these to the rope about every 50 feet 

 after getting it started down. And we always used a good piece of heavy 

 chain just ahead of the dredge bridle. 



There are still so many things to know about dredging. One is the 

 things you know are there but can't get. Dead valves of our very rare 

 Anatina for example are not uncommon, and while we have brought up 

 many broken valves (it is very fragile) we never brought up a living shell. 

 No dredge we ever used could cut deeper than a few inches, so those things 

 just must live too deep for us. The extremely delicate things were always 

 an annoyance; Solemya is an example. We dredged thousands of these 

 and I think we managed to get 2 or 3 decent living adult specimens. Other 

 fine things that we dredged with an average of 99 percent smashed in the 

 dredge are Cyathodontn undulata and Periploma discus. Toil and trouble 

 and rewarding enjoyment — that's dredging. 



DIVING FOR SHELLS 



By Thomas L. McGinty 



Reprinted from 1941 annual report, American Malacological Union 



Doubtless, the art of diving was known to man long before he became 

 civilized. The first divers probably knew nothing of pearls and treasure 

 but contented themselves with tapping nature's lavish supply of food in 

 the shoal waters close to shore. Although primitive, according to modern 



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