124 FISHEEMEN OF THE UNITED STATES. 



old fashioned conch shell horn is carried, and this is considered by many experienced fishermen 

 superior to the tin horn. Some vessels carry muskets and a few of them small cannon. The firing 

 of cannon is so expensive and dangerous that they can only be used in an emergency, and they 

 are not generally fired until too late to be of any assistance to the men who are astray. It is 

 estimated that an ordinary horn can be heard in calm weather from 1 mile to 1J miles; with an 

 ordinary breeze it can be heard to the windward perhaps not 200 yards, to the leeward perhaps a 

 mile; but in much of the weather in which fishermen are out hauling their trawls such a horn 

 cannot be heard to a greater distance than one-quarter the length of one of their trawl-lines. 



An objection to the Anderson piston horn is that it gets so easily out of repair that sometimes, 

 after being used for a few hours, it is of no further service until it has been overhauled. 



There are very serious objections to the use of the mouth horn. The labor of blowing this 

 devolves upon the skipper, who remains on board the vessel, and is obliged to keep blowing from 

 morning until night, in order that the boats may keep within a safe distance of the vessel. This 

 continual blowiDg is very exhausting, so that the skipper's power to aid his men is very much 

 diminished at the close of the day, when the sound of his horn is generally most needed. Some 

 device by which a succession of loud blasts, at frequent intervals, can be kept up on board of the 

 vessels, especially some horn which can be worked without the aid of the human lungs, and 

 powerful enough to be heard a long distance, would be of the greatest importance to our fishermen, 

 as well as to sea-faring men of all classes and nations. 



Much of the danger incurred by the thickness of the fog preventing the men in the dories from 

 seeing their vessel may be averted by the use of a compass in each dory. Although this custom 

 has been growing in favor within the last ten years, yet probably not more than one-half of the 

 dories belonging to Gloucester vessels are provided with this instrument, and the proportion in 

 vessels from other ports is very much less. It seems culpable negligence on the part of the owners 

 not to provide compasses for their crews, since the cost of an instrument sufficiently accurate to 

 answer every purpose does not exceed $3. It is a fair question whether they should not be obliged 

 by law to furnish such additional safeguards to prevent suffering and loss of life. It should be men- 

 tioned in this connection that where compasses are used they are in every instance furnished by 

 the crews, and not by the owners of the vessels.* Fifty-two men were reported to have gone 

 astray, from Gloucester vessels, in about two months, in the spring and early summer of 1SS3. 



Dangers from collision. — There is danger, in foggy weather, of a dory being run down 

 by steamers or passing vessels, though disaster can usually be avoided by cutting the trawl or 

 anchor line. Dories are sometimes capsized by heavy seas when unloading their fish and gear 

 alongside the vessel. The manner of setting trawls under sail is described in the chapter on the 

 halibut fishery. This is the only method of setting trawls in the haddock winter fishery. As the 

 vessel under sail approaches the dories to pick them up, there is a danger of the man at the wheel 

 miscalculating the exact distance, and, striking the dory, of upsetting her. Many instances of this 

 kind are recorded. Seine boats, with ten or twelve men on board, have been upset in this way, 

 though loss of life has not been frequent as a result of such accidents. 



Danger of the upsetting of small boats when under sail. — This is a not uncommon 

 cause of loss of life, not so much in the case of the Bank fishermen in their dories as in the shore 

 fisheries, often carried on in sail boats by men who are reckless in their management. 



* Lost in the fog.— James Burke and Henry Fitzgerald, of schooner E. B. Phillips, from Le Have Bank, 14th, 

 left their vessel at -1 p. m. New Year's day. A thick fog setting in, they were not able to regain her, and they rowed 

 all night and the next day, when, at 6 o'clock, they were fortunate enough to get alongside schooner Tragahig/amla, 

 where they got something to eat, and, taking a fresh start, after getting rested, reached their own vessel at midnight, 

 after having been absent thirty-six hours. — Cape Ann Advertiser, January 21, 1876. 



