Haddon and Gtreen — Second Report on Irish Marine Fauna. 51 
round this it made two turns in the direction opposite to that necessary 
for heaving-in: the strain could thus cause the windlass to heave 
round ; hut the friction was so great that one hand on the hreak of the 
reel could always check it, except when the dredge or trawl had fouled 
some ohstacle on the hottom: the strain then overcame the friction 
break, and warned us to haul in. As we did not use an accumulator, 
this plan proved most satisfactory. The friction on the windlass could 
easily he increased, so that we could without difficulty have managed 
a very much longer wire rope, and the constant regret was that we 
had not 1500 fathoms of it on hoard. It was found necessary to fii 
the reel at a good distance from the donkey-engine ; for, if too close, 
the rope could not he swayed to and fro, and so stowed evenly on the 
reel. 
Lest the wire rope should meet with an accident, we provided our- 
selves with a similar length of 2^-inch Manilla rope, which I arranged 
to re-sell at half price when we were done with it. This I hoped 
might also with safety he used in conjunction with the steel rope, and 
so give us a length of 1000 fathoms, and also that its buoyancy would 
counteract the strain caused by the weight of the wire rope. We tried 
this combination once, but never again, as the twist of the manilla rope 
passed into the wire rope and caused it to kink, and become almost un- 
manageable, and in the end the wire rope had to be cut and spliced to 
get rid of a number of bad kinks which had formed in one portion of it. 
500 fathoms of steel fencing wire, IsTo. 8 Birmingham wire gauge, 
which we also brought with us, hoping that with it we might at small 
cost increase the reach of our dredges, proved a failure. It was strong 
enough, having a breaking strain of 1200 lbs. It paid out well, and 
with it at the end of our steel rope we had the dredge working the 
bottom in a satisfactory manner at a depth of 680 fathoms; but, on 
stopping the steamer's way to haul in, kinks must have formed, for 
the wire broke close to the dredge and three badly- jambed kinks were 
close to the fracture. 
Had the weather given us a chance to try again, I believe the wire 
might have been worked safely, by taking the precaution to attach a 
weight to its lower extremity to keep it stretched, and have the dredge 
connected with it by about 50 fathoms stray line, so that the wire 
might be kept from reaching the bottom : its cheapness and strength 
were two recommendations. 
We were thus compelled to content ourselves with dredging and 
trawling in depths accessible by means of our wire rope alone. In 
these depths the results were satisfactory, and the speed at which we 
E 2 
