Liv BULLELIN OF THE 
other ideas were incorporated with the original plan. From the draw- 
ings a machine for experimental purposes was made in the winter of 
1874—5. The new machine was used for three years on board the 
Coast Survey Steamer “Blake,” the vessel being under my command, 
and engaged in deep-sea work, As we had previously used the original 
machine for six months, opportunity was had of comparing the relative 
merits of the two machines. Some faults, arising from bad mechanical 
arrangements, had first to be rectified in the new machine, after which, 
even under the most unfavorable circumstances of wind, sea, and cur- 
rent, it performed as I had wished. In the first form of Sir William 
Thomson’s machine, or rather in its somewhat modified form as used 
by Captain Belknap, there was simply the reel and register, as shown 
in my drawings, and in the rear of the reel a small pulley connected 
tangentically with a scale. Over the friction score of the reel, and thence 
around the score of the pulley, a single part of an endless friction line 
was taken, and the scales showed the amount of resistance applied to 
the reel while the sinker was descending. The wire was payed out 
directly from the reel into the water. (See the appended sketch, copied 
from Captain Belknap's book.) Toa later form of his machine the in- 
ventor had added a reeling-in pulley and a swivel or castor pulley, both 
of which are improvements, and have been adopted by me in designing a 
new machine. His pulleys are of different construction and arrangement 
from those shown in my drawing, but in both cases they serve the same 
purpose. (See Sir William Thomson’s pamphlet on the subject of his 
machine.) The improvements which I have endeavored to effect lie 
chiefly in the employment of a peculiar kind of accumulator, and its 
adaptation to the various uses of accumulator, dynamometer, brake, 
correct register, and governor. 
I think I may state, after four years of experience in deep-sea sound- 
ing with wire, in a small steamer, that the value of the improvements 
warrant their extra cost ; and I would offer the results accomplished as 
evidence of the correctness of my assumption. 
In reeling in, the new machine has the advantage at all times. In 
paying out, in perfectly calm weather there is little advantage gained 
over the old machine ; but when there is any motion to the vessel the 
gain is very great for the new machine, while in ease of manipulation 
the advantage is always most decidedly in favor of the latter. 
With the experimental machine between twelve and fifteen hundred 
soundings have been taken, the original springs being still in use, and 
no repairs having been necessary in any part of the apparatus. 
