318 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
leather for half of its length, the leather being nailed on with headless copper tacks, 
to avoid the possibility of catching the wire. There is a becket through a hole near 
the end of the handle. 
To protect the leather from unnecessary wear, it should be kept well oiled. It 
will usually receive an ample supply from contact with the wire. 
To use the wire guide, take it in the right hand, slip the becket over the wrist, 
grasp the brace of the sounding machine with the left hand for support, if there is 
much motion on the vessel, then i^ress the leather-covered surface lightly against the 
wire with suiticient force to guide it evenly upon the reel. It should be made an inva- 
riable rule to use the guide, even though a few fathoms only have been run olf, in 
Cut 40. 
a. Lignum- vitao jawa. c. Guide bolts, l>rass. 
b. Spiudle, with right auil lel't liiiiul screws. d. Souniliiig wire. 
Cut 40. — Side view of the Sigsbee wire clamp, showing ja ws a and right and left hand screws by which 
they are opened and closed; also guide bolts c, which are rigidly set into right jaw and slide freely 
in the left. 
Cu r 41. — Top view, showing ends of jaws a, between which are grippeil two pieces of sounding wire d. 
Cut 42. — Front view, showing manner of clamping the wire. 
ortler to guard against the exasperating occurrence of slack turns of wire on the 
reel. The guide is very useful, also, in the hands of an expert, for detecting kinks or 
defective splices, which are rarely discernible by sight on rapidly running wire. 
The diinamometer staff and spriiuj were devised by the writer in 1891 for the pur- 
pose of facilitating the guiding of the sounding wire upon the reel with the least 
possible friction on the splices, reducing the manual exertion required to guide it, 
and avoiding the danger and annoyance resulting from slack turns. 
In sounding with the Sigsbee 
machine, the accumulator pulley, 
over which the wire leads, has a 
vertical motion nearly the entire 
length of the tubes within which 
its controlling springs are in- 
closed, and a scale on the right 
tube indicates the tension on the 
wire, as well as the moment the sinker strikes bottom. Nothing better can be desired 
during the paying out, but the greater strain brought uiion the wire while reeling 
