40 THE PROBLEMS OF THE DEEP SEA n 



Plain men may be puzzled to understand why 

 Dr. Wyville Thomson, not being a cynic, should 

 relegate the " Land of Promise " to the bottom of 

 the deep sea ; they may still more wonder what 

 manner of " milk and honey " the Challenger 

 expects to find; and their perplexity may well 

 rise to its maximum, when they seek to divine the 

 manner in which that milk and honey are to be 

 got out of so inaccessible a Canaan. I will, there- 

 fore, endeavour to give some answer to these 

 questions in an order the reverse of that in which 

 I have stated them. 



Apart from hooks, and lines, and ordinary nets, 

 fishermen have, from time immemorial, made use 

 of two kinds of implements for getting at sea- 

 creatures which live beyond tide-marks these are 

 the " dredge " and the " trawl." The dredge is 

 used by oyster-fishermen. Imagine a large bag, 

 the mouth of which has the shape of an elongated 

 parallelogram, and is fastened to an iron frame of 

 the same shape, the two long sides of this rim 

 being fashioned into scrapers. Chains attach the 

 ends of the frame to a stout rope, so that when 

 the bag is dragged along by the rope the edge of one 

 of the scrapers rests on the ground, and scrapes 

 whatever it touches into the bag. The oyster- 

 dredger takes one of these machines in his boat, 

 and when he has reached the oyster-bed the 

 dredge is tossed overboard ; as soon as it has sunk 

 to the bottom the rope is paid out sufficiently 



