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 William 
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 
7 inch circumference, and on the other 500 fath. of # mch 
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 1888 I gave it, with very 
good results, a second lining of mosquito netting. 
A most important consideration in a dredging-expedition 
off the S.W. corner of Ireland, where the sea is nearly 
always rough, is to secure the co-operation of helpers pos- 
sessed of sufficient zeal in the work to make them ignore the 
discomfort, and who may be proof against the mal de mer. 
This year I was fortunate in securing the help of two gentle- 
men, Mr. T. H. 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’ 
eges to “sea eggs,’ and take charge of the numerous 
Echinoderms that needed drying and careful packing. 
Whatever success has crowned our efforts is due in the main 
to the efficient 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 
