chap, vi.] 



DEEP-SEA DREDGING. 



239 



membra licet fractus, aniinum demisi, nee ab incepto 

 desistere potui. Discant deliinc historiae naturalis 

 scituli, rariora naturae absque iudefesso labore nee 

 coniparari, nee iuste nosei." 1 It does not appear, 

 however, that Otho .Frederick Muller dredged much 

 beyond thirty fathoms, and in his day the knowledge 

 of marine animals was not sufficiently advanced to 

 warrant any generalization as 

 to their bathymetrical distri- 

 bution. 



The instrument usually em- 

 ployed in this and other 

 northern countries for dredg- 

 ing oysters and clams is a 

 light frame of iron about five 



feet long by a foot or so in 

 width at the mouth, with a 

 scraper like a narrow hoe o;i 

 one side, and a suspending 

 apparatus of thin iron bars 

 which meet in an iron ring for 

 the attachment of the dredge 

 rope on the other. From 

 the frame is suspended a bag 



Fig. 44.— Otho Frederick Muller* 

 Dredge, a.d. 1750. 



about two feet in depth, of 



iron chain netting, or of wide-meshed hempen cord 

 netting, or of a mixture of both. Naturalist dredgers 

 at first used the oyster dredge, and all the different 

 dredges now in use are modifications of it in one 

 direction or in another ; for in its simplicity it is not 



1 Zoologia Danica. Sev Aniuialiviu Daniae et Norvegiae rariorum 

 ac minvs notorvm Descriptiones et Historia. Avctore Othone Friderico 

 Midler. Havniae, 1788. 



