42 THE PROBLEMS OF THE DEEP SEA n 



nearly equal to the "aeight of Mont Blanc. The 

 dredge " was rapidly hauled on deck at one o'clock 

 in the morning of ^he 23rd, after an absence of 

 7J hours, and a journey of upwards of eight statute 

 miles," with a hundred weight and a half of solid 

 contents. 



The trawl is a sort of net for catching those fish 

 which habitually live at the bottom of the sea, 

 such as soles, plaice, turbot, and gurnett. The 

 mouth of the net may be thirty or forty feet wide, 

 and one edge of its mouth is fastened to a beam 

 of wood of the same length. The two ends of the 

 beam are supported by curved pieces of iron, 

 which raise the beam and the edge of the net 

 which is fastened to it, for a short distance, while 

 the other edge of the mouth of the net trails upon 

 the ground. The closed end of the net has the 

 form of a great pouch; and, as the beam is 

 dragged along, the fish, roused from the bottom 

 by the sweeping of the net, readily pass into its 

 mouth and accumulate in the pouch at its end. 

 After drifting with the tide for six or seven hours 

 the trawl is hauled up, the marketable fish are 

 picked out, the others thrown away, and the trawl 

 Bent overboard for another operation. 



More than a thousand sail of well-found trawlers 

 are constantly engaged in sweeping the seas 

 around our coast in this way, and it is to them 

 that we owe a very large proportion of our supply 

 of fish. The difficulty of trawling, like that of 



