54 PACIFIC COD FISHERIES. 
of a patented power device, known as a net lifter, for hauling in 
the nets. 
The net lifter is a circular machine fitted along the outer rim with 
a number of fingers. ‘The mechanism operating these fingers moves 
on tracks, and is so arranged that the fingers take hold as they come 
opposite the rail of the vessel and let go when they have completed 
about two-thirds of one complete revolution from the point where 
they first gripped. By this means the net is grasped by the fingers 
as it comes aboard, and after being carried about two-thirds of the 
way around is released and allowed to drop on the deck. A frame- 
work extends from the lifter outboard, and at the outer end is a 
roller, while a sheet-iron trough for the passage of the net and fish 
runs from the roller to and partly around the machine and rests upon 
the framework. The machine is operated either by a small gasoline 
engine or directly from the main engine. 
The net lifter is generally set on the port side, forward of the fore 
rigging, although it will work about as well when set on the star- 
board side, or when close aft of the fore rigging. 
At my instance the Union Fish Co., of San Francisco, with its usual 
progressiveness, purchased the necessary number of gill nets for an 
experiment on a moderate scale, a net lifter, and a four-horsepower 
Imperial engine to operate same. 
The gill nets were 125 yards long each and made of 12/3 cord 
linen. A specially made line was used for head, foot, and side lines. 
The nets were of 73-inch stretch mesh and were 15 meshes deep. 
The floats, which were made of white cedar, were 2 inches by 5 
inches, and had been soaked a number of times in boiling linseed oil 
in order to make them waterproof. Fifty of these were used to the 
net and were hung from the cork line and not strung on. The leads, 
which were 34 inches long, with a diameter of thirteen-sixteenths 
inch, weighed 7 ounces each, were made to close on the line and not 
strung on, and were set opposite the floats. 
As the nets were primarily for use during the winter season, when 
the spawning cod are on the inshore banks, the work carried on dur- 
ing the summer was merely preliminary and mainly for the purpose 
of accustoming the men to their use. 
Boxes with flaring tops, so that they would nest, were constructed, 
and in these the nets were stowed, with the lead line at one end and 
the cork line at the other; these boxes would hold about four nets 
each. 
When ready to set the boxes were arranged on the after deck, and 
as the vessel steamed along the anchor, buoy, and buoy line were 
thrown overboard, and the nets were then paid out by two men, one 
handling the cork line and the other the lead line. Another man 
bent on a new net when the previous one had almost run out. After 
