410 Deep-sea Trawling off the S.W. Coast of Ireland: 



available for lowering the heavy iron reels, &c., on board. 

 Some of the gear in my charge belongs to the Science and 

 Art Museum in Dublin, and the Director kindly permitted 

 me to use it on condition that a complete set of duplicate 

 specimens should be sent to Dublin. The gear which we 

 used on the present occasion, and which I have been getting 

 together and improving on for several years, consists chiefly 

 of a deep-sea sounding-machine, made on Sir AVilliam 

 Thomson's design, with improvements by Capt. SIgsbee of 

 the U.S. Navy. For this we have two reels with 1400 fath. 

 of steel sounding-wire on each. In deep water a belt con- 

 nects the machine with the donkey-engine, so that we can 

 haul up by steam. For dredging and trawling we have two 

 reels of steel wire rope ; on one is wound 1000 fath. of rope 

 ^ inch circumference, and on the other 500 fath. of | inch 

 rope. The donkey-engine had to be slightly altered to heave 

 in this rope, which is wound on to the reels by hand. I have 

 a good assortment of trawls and dredges, and though we took 

 several in case of accidents, the only two we used were an 

 ordinary 20-foot-beam trawl, having a fine-mesh inner lining 

 to the net, and an Agassiz deep-sea trawl, 9-foot beam, and 

 with double foot-ropes. This trawl has not only an inner 

 lining of fine-mesh net, but in 188S I gave it, with very 

 good results, a second lining of mosquito netting. 



A most important consideration in a dredging-expedition 

 oif the S.W. corner of Ireland, where the sea is nearly 

 always rough, is to secure the co-operation of lielpers pos- 

 sessed of sufiicient zeal in the work to make them ignore the 

 discomfort, and who may be proof against the mnl de mer. 

 This year I was fortunate in securing the help of two gentle- 

 men, Mr. T. 11. Poole, C.E., and Mr. W. de V. Kane, 

 who were with me on a former cruise, and Mr. R. Ussher, 

 who now came for the first time. 



The work assigned to each was as follows : — Mr. Poole 

 took charge of the soundings and . the charting of our cruise, 

 kept the log, and helped at trawling. Mr. Kane's speciality, 

 besides helping at the log, was the preservation of spirit- 

 specimens ; and Mr. Ussher, though most especially an 

 ornithologist, was asked to transfer his affections from birds' 

 eggs to " sea eggs," and take charge of the numerous 

 Echinoderms that needed drying and careful packing. 

 Whatever success has crowned our eft'orts is due in the main 

 to the efiicient help I received from these gentlemen, and to 

 that rendered with much enthusiasm by our good captain 

 ' and crew. 



We were most fortunate, too, in the weather. Never before 



