CHAP. in. The Steelyard proper. 41 



and necessary thickness depending on whether you are going to have 

 it three feet long or six feet, and what weight you mean it to bear. 

 The longer length will be found troublesome in carriage, and for the 

 shorter length one by two inches will suffice. It may be, and should 

 be, much lightened towards the end farthest from the fish. As near 

 the thick end as the wood will stand it, say an inch off it, screw in the 

 hook from which the fish is to be suspended, the bar or " beam " being 

 with its depth perpendicular. On the opposite side of the beam, and 

 an inch farther from the same end, screw in another such hook, and 

 again another two inches further on. These last two hooks are the 

 hooks from which the beam is to be suspended, and I will call the first 

 mentioned A, the second B. A B 

 Suspend the beam from B, .. 1 



and if it does not hang level, b ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' " " """""jj 



weight the short end till it w 



does. This is easily done by screwing in one or more common screws 

 half home at the very end of the short end, leaving them projecting so 

 as to give the lead a hold, and then wrapping stout brown paper round 

 the short end and projecting beyond it so as to form a cup, pouring 

 into this cup molten lead more than enough, and when cool rasping 

 down till your beam swings true from B. Then make yourself a one 

 pound weight attached to a wire loop that will hang from any part of 

 your beam, and taking ascertained weights of one, two, three, etc., 

 pounds suspended from the fish hook C, move the one-pound weight 

 W into the equipoising position on the beam, and mark off and number 

 the places on the beam where the wire rests. Then suspend from 

 hook A, and similarly mark the weights on the other side of the beam. 



The principle can easily be extended to showing ounces, if you 

 really want them, as you will doubtless see without my being further 

 tedious. 



Though purely fresh-water fish, Mahseer are more or less migratory 

 in their habits, ascending during the floods considerable heights, two 

 thousand five hundred feet to my knowledge in the Canara district, ten 

 pound fish being there found half way up the Mercara Ghat, and 

 travelling long distances for the sake of spawning. When the streams 

 are swollen by the monsoon rains they are able to ascend to parts of 

 the river till then unapproachable for want of water. There they find 

 fresh feeding grounds that are inaccessible to them at other times. 



