REMARKS ON TRAWLING. 8321 
capstan is on deck. ‘The latter (capstan) in some trawlers is made 
too high, and is wrenched out of its fastenings. 
The trawl is usually down for five hours on the “‘ Great Fisher 
Bank” and other grounds, though trawlers working near home 
regulate the time rather by the nature of the bottom than anything 
else, in some cases spending as much time (three hours) in mending 
the net as in trawling on hard ground, or where wrecks and anchors 
occur. ‘The trawling period, indeed, on hard ground is about three 
hours, on soft ground five hours. When productive ground is 
discovered, a “‘dan,”’ or buoy, with a red or black flag by day, and 
a white globe-light, close to the surface, at night, is put in the 
water to mark the spot, though it is lable to be carried away by 
other ships, and the lamp broken. ‘This buoy has a pole, with 
heavy iron bars, at one end, and towards the other about ten flat 
pieces of cork, upwards of a foot square. In one or two ships floats 
of skin—such as the liners use in herring-fishing, with pole and 
flag, were substituted for the cork buoys, or small pieces of cork on 
a strmg. The rate of speed when trawling is, as formerly, about 
25 knots an hour, though on muddy ground a higher rate is some- 
times maintained. In sailing, the best ships go about 11 knots. At 
night the captain and mate take watch alternately with one of 
the crew. 
The crews on board the trawling ships remain very much as in 
1884, the usual number being eight, though there are only seven in 
the Montrose paddle-ships, one of whom is cook. The latter may 
be either an old man or an adolescent. Hach is furnished in the 
newest ships with a life-jacket of cork, and there are besides two 
life-buoys on deck. Only two at Aberdeen, the captain and mate, 
now have a percentage on the amount of fishes captured. The rest 
of the crew have ordinary wages. At Montrose the captain and 
two fishermen have a share in the “ catch;” the rest have wages. 
There are seven men on board the ships of the General Steam Fish- 
ing Company at Granton, instead of eight as formerly. The per- 
centages given to each remain almost as in 1884, a graduated series 
running from the ‘ deck-hands’’ to the captain. The first engineer 
gets 5s., and the second 3s. 4d. per ton of fishes. 
In 1884 the Granton General Fishing Company’s ships used 
“cringles ” in transferring, during stormy weather, the fish-boxes 
to the ‘‘carrier” for the day. This practice has now been aban- 
doned, and the ships either run to quiet water, and place the boxes 
on the deck of the “ carrier,” or they are at once transferred by 
boarding. It is during the latter operation that considerable 
injuries occur to the bulwarks and rail of the ships, the former 
having the stays bent, and the latter being frequently driven in. 
