13 



and this, with iew exceptions, has beeii the usuul custom. Among tliese excej^- 

 tions must be nientioned Tanner and the Duke of Monaco, who with his pro- 

 portionallj' small vessel, the »HirondeUe«, has done much, and particulary paid 

 great attention to the apparatus, of which several new ones have been con- 

 structed, particularly deep-sea ireels (traps) and an otter-frairl for pelagic fishery 

 which in its construetion with crow-ioot and boards very much resembles 

 the one I have used; the net-apparatus, however, is quite difTerent. 



^\'^e must not lay too much stress, however, on the unsuccessful experi- 

 meuts which » Vørmgen« made with otter-trawl or rather, I tliink, with otter- 

 seine; for if we liave no practice in the use of such a one, and if the vessel, 

 as the case was with » Vøritif/en«, is rather large in proportion to the trawl, 

 the tishery will easily turn out a failure, particularly in unfavourable weather. 

 Here as everywhere some practice in necessary. The first times we tried to 

 place an ofter-seine in thé water, we failed nearly every secoud time; since theu 

 I have personally manæuvred the steamers, and made more than 100 hauls 

 on all depths, down to 200 fathoms, without a single failure from that reason. 

 The ijrincipal thing is, all the time while you are lowering the gear, to hold the 

 line so tant that the boards are constantlj' removing from each other, a thing the 

 man wlio veers out the line very quickly learns; at the same time, of course, 

 the vessel must go on by the propeller. When the length of line you want to 

 get out, is out, the speed is diminished so much that the seiue is allowed to sink 

 slowly to the bottom. — On these depths, up to 2 — 300 fathoms, I have fouud it 

 superfluous to use an accumulator for the towrope, which of course was of steel- 

 wire; in a liigh sea it will be necessary, however, if there is anything heavy 

 in the seine. The wire-rope has during the dredging been fastened round the 

 trundle-head of the steam-winch, so that we were able, if the seine should take 

 too firm a hold of the bottem, to veer iiway and tlien heave in. The tow-rope 

 has during the trawling always gone asteru, either through a jaAv on tlie stern- 

 slieets, or, and tiiat is the best, along the side of Ihe ship, over the Ijow, 

 through a short, strong davit, or the like. (Cmp. fig. 5.) In the latter case the 

 rope has, during the fishiug, on the short vessels, been huug up and made 

 fast under the buttock, so that it could not get into the propeller. When they 

 are to heave in, they let go from the buttock, and tlie vessel swings to the 

 seine while they heave in — provided that the vessel is not too large in pro- 

 portion to the seine. For the sake of the manceuvring as also in order to get 

 a suitable speed, for the sake of the fishing itself consequently, there should 

 be, evidently, a sintahle proporlion hettreen the size of the vessel and that of the 

 seine. The ship should Jeel that it has something to drag, or the speed will easily 



