2o8 



DISCOVERY REPORTS 



wire pays out from the drum of the winch, and the gear can often be recovered 



without serious damage. The nipper was made by BulHvant and Co. and is of the 



type illustrated in the figure quoted above. It has a double cam action and releasing 



plate, and the jaws have two grooves to suit i| and ij in. wire. Another type, with 



grooved brass wedges driving into a steel casing, 



was tried, but could not be made to grip the wire 



satisfactorily. A smaller nipper, also with cam 



action, and with brass interchangeable jaw plates, 



was occasionally used for the 4 mm. and 6 mm. 



wires; but the simple screw-clamp, shown in 



Fig. 26, was at least as easy to manipulate. With 



these light wires the nipper or clamp was for the 



most part only required when some misadventure 



made it necessary to take up the outboard strain. 



Fig. 26. Simple screw- 

 clamp for light wire 

 ropes. 



Fig. 27. Hand harpoon 

 with swivel head. 



Hand-Nets, Harpoons, etc. Hand-nets and 

 lines were of course frequently employed and 

 a sort of mussel rake, with heavy teeth and a 

 triangle of wire netting extending from the cross- 

 piece to the handle, was useful for collecting 

 organic growth attached to hulks and to the piles 

 of jetties. Equipment for obtaining porpoises 

 and dolphins was taken, including a small har- 

 poon gun of the type used in hunting the bottle- 

 nose. The hand harpoons were provided with a 

 swivel head, as shown in Fig. 27, which gives a 

 very effective grip : in use one end of the head is tied back to the shaft with a piece 

 of thin twine. 



WHALE-MARKING 



As already explained (p. 147), one of the objects for which the 'William Scoresby' 

 was built was to undertake whale-marking — the only means by which the niigrations 

 of whales can be traced with any certainty. 

 Preliminary experiments made in 1925 in- 

 dicated that the best way of attempting to 

 mark whales would be by shooting a mark into 

 the blubber. An ordinary 12-bore gun was 

 found suitable and trials were made on a 

 shooting range with various patterns of mark. 

 Portions of blubber obtained from whales 

 stranded on the British coast were used as 

 targets, and eventually the form of mark shown 

 in Figs. 28 and 29 was evolved. 



Fig. 28. Whale marks. 



