320 IN LOWER FLORIDA WILDS 



A deep-sea sounding lead with concave base 

 containing grease and attached to a piano wire is 

 lowered before every dredge haul. This gives a 

 depth record and a preliminary sample of the 

 bottom. 



With a boat the size of the Eolis it is only pos- 

 sible to dredge in the open sea when the weather 

 is good and it is reasonably smooth. So we gen- 

 erally sought a harbor every night. When work- 

 ing on the lower end of the Pourtales Plateau we 

 used Key West as a base. Dredging is not all fun 

 and relaxation by any means. Often for days at 

 a time the wind would blow too hard for outside 

 work and we would be compelled to content our- 

 selves with the light dredge inside the reef — gen- 

 erally with meager results. Given a suitable day, 

 sometimes we would make haul after haul in deep 

 water and get nothing. Occasionally the bag, as 

 if possessed by the devil, would get fouled over 

 the edges of the blades and come up after a long 

 laborious haul empty as it went down. Gen- 

 erally an experienced dredger can tell by putting 

 his hand on the rope what the machine below is 

 doing. Again it would come up, after having 

 badly fouled on the rocky bottom, twisted out of 



