316 REMARKS ON TRAWLING. 
has a swivel. Moreover, in the “ Belcher ” the hook of the chain- 
lashing is jointed and fastened with a ring, so that the boat can be 
made ready in a minute. The modern boat is considerably larger, 
and is covered with canvas. 
In connection with the fittings on deck, the use of raised or pro- 
jecting figures or letters of sheet-iron on the funnel is one of the 
modern changes; they are very easily seen at a distance. The 
initial letter of the owner is sometimes added. Lach vessel is, of 
course, marked likewise on quarter and bow. 
The ice-house, which had just been introduced in 1884, is now 
an important part of the vessel, usually in front of the fish-hold. 
Five tons of broken ice are taken in the larger vessels to the distant 
grounds. It is sent from the stores in barrels, and passed from the ~ 
cart to the hold by afunnel. So important has this feature become, 
both for liners and trawlers—in Aberdeen, for instance—that special 
factories have been erected for the manufacture of ice by the ammonia 
system, about twenty tons being made daily in one* near the 
harbour at present, and extensions are in progress to manufacture 
forty tons daily. On the distant grounds, where most of the work 
of the larger vessels occurs, the ice is placed over the fishes after 
they are “gutted” and consigned to the hold, as was done by the 
English trawlers from the distant grounds in 1884, ‘lhe price of ice 
(at present 17s. 6d. per ton) is thus an item of moment in the 
trawling expenditure. On discharging the fishes from Iceland, Farée, 
or the Great Fisher Bank, the old ice is thrown overboard, and, 
though it might seem economical to keep it for use in a subsequent 
voyage, e.g. for the preservation of the offal, for which 10s. per ton 
is got from the manure companies, yet it is certainly the safer 
method. No wind-sails are now employed. 
The fish-hold in the best ships is from 9 to 10 feet in height, 
divided into compartments, each with two shelves. In the 
“« Southesk,”’ a screw-vessel at Montrose, there are two holds. When 
fishes are stored with alternate layers of ice, the front of the com- 
partment is closed with planks, unpainted or coated green with 
enamel-paint, which is readily purified by washing. The shelves, 
again, in each division, are useful in diminishing compression. This 
alone is a marked change on the Granton trawling-vessels of 1884, 
for the newest ships then had only an ice-chamber surrounding a 
central compartment in which the fish-boxes were placed. The 
smacks from Grimsby and other parts in England, it is true, used 
ice in the manner now described in 1884 and previously, but it was 
comparatively rare in Scotland at that period. It is necessitated 
now by the lengthened voyages to the more distant grounds, 
* Mr. Lang’s, 
