152 DRAGGING FOR SEA-WEEDS. 



and with some collecting boxes and bottles, and a sieve to 

 sort the smaller animals from the mud and silt. When 

 the water is clear and not very deep, the aspect of the 

 bottom, as the boat glides quietly over it, often affords 

 a charming submarine picture, as well as reveals the 

 places where the dredge may be most profitably thrown 

 down. The larger sea-weeds, seen like a forest waving 

 in the clear water below you, generally mark the posi- 

 tion of rocks, and forbid the use of the dredge ; but 

 often the treasures of such ground may be rifled by 

 using another instrument, called a drag, which can 

 sometimes be employed on foul ground with much effect. 

 This instrument consists of 

 a series of hooks attached 

 to a transverse bar and con- 

 nected with a rope. It ought 

 to weigh at least five or six 

 pounds. This is to be drag- 

 ged along among the leaves 

 of the large sea-weeds, care 



being taken, when the ground is very foul, not to 

 allow it to fr,ll into holes among the rocks, in which 

 it would be liable to be caught. By suffering it to drag 

 among the sea-weeds, some of these will be detached, 

 and being caught by the hooks, may readily be hauled 



dredging over the same ground for nine or ten hours in Plymouth 

 Sound. Your little dredge did thrice the work with half the labour. 

 I cannot tell you how deeply indebted I feel to you for it, &c. 

 " Believe me, yours most truly, 



" N. B. WARD." 

 " To Robert Ball, LL.D., &c. 

 Dublin." 



