Sinker

“ In tidal waters a sinker is necessary to keep the bait at mid-water, or a few feet from the bottom, especially when shrimp, crab, or earthworms are used for bait. The weight of the sinker must be adapted to the strength of the tide. The best season is during late summer or autumn in brackish water, from an anchored boat, at half-flood or half-ebb tide; up the tidal rivers at high tide. At low water they must be looked for in the deep holes, among the rocks. Wherever found the white-perch will not disappoint the angler, but is ever ready to respond to his baited hook. ”

“ By the aid of the derrick, which was provided with a rude windlass, constructed by Ethan, the stone post was hoisted up, and then dropped down on the skids. The sinker had been rigged with slings, and the hogshead was attached to it by a contrivance of Lawry, upon which the success of the operation wholly depended, and which it will be very difficult to describe with words. The sinker would carry the cask to the bottom of the lake, where its buoyancy was to assist in bringing the steamer to the surface of the water ”

“ The sinkers used are 8-inch shot with holes bored through their centres 21/4 inches, and 23/4 inches in diameter, through which the Brooke detaching rod and the specimen cylinders are passed; their weight is 55 lbs. and 51 lbs. Sir William Thomson used a lead sinker weighing 30 lbs. which he hauled back with the wire, but that plan put too much stress on the machine in reeling in, and the heavier sinker to be detached by Brooke’s apparatus was adopted on board the Tuscarora. ”

“ You know, the char in this lake keep in shoals, and move about altogether. Just now they are in the upper basin. They are gradually coming back to us. But char-fishing with the plumb-line is slow sport at best. How is it done? Well, like this: Imagine a heavy sinker on a line from which hang by gut-lengths as many as fifty hooks and baits. That’s your tackle. You row out to where the char are lying, and drop your sinker overboard, taking care that your baits don’t foul one another in going down. ”

“ In the operation of sinking and dividing the part of the sinker most in use is the throat, marked A, and this is the point where wear most rapidly occurs due to the friction of the yarn. Wearing is accelerated in the case of stiff yarns being worked on the machine and sinkers have to be specially tempered or hardened to give adequate service. ”

“ When this weight touches bottom the drum ceases to revolve, due to the automatic brake, and [49] the depth can be read off on the scale to one side of the apparatus. A cleverly devised little attachment to the sinker brings up in its grasp a specimen of sea bottom, so that one can ascertain if it be sand or rock, and whether or not it is suitable for cable laying. ”

“ Fastened to the slings on the sinker was a rope ten fathoms in length. A loop was formed in this line, close to the sinker, and the bight passed through the slings on the hogshead. The loop was then laid over the two ropes, one of which was fast to the sinker, and the other was the unattached end of the line, and "toggled" on with a marline-spike. If the young reader does not quite understand the process, let him take a string, with one end fastened to a flatiron; double it, and pass the loop—which sailors call a bight—upward between the thumb and forefinger ”

“ It is then repeated with Apparatus III. When they are all ready, they are heaved in.
By holding one's finger on the line one can feel, at all events in fairly calm weather, when the sinkers strike against the cylinders; but I used to look at my watch, as it takes about half a minute for the sinker to go down 100 metres.
The necessary data are entered in a book.
On the morning of the 17th, then, the sails were clewed up, and the Fram began to roll even worse than with the sails set. We first tried taking soundings with a sinker of 66 pounds, and a tube for taking specimens of the sea-bed. ”

“ When milking the cow, some drops of milk were sprinkled on the “bosten” in the byre; likewise at a private baptism, the “bosten” was sometimes sprinkled with a few drops of the baptismal water. 2) a sea-term, tabu-name in fishermen’s language for the sinker (kappi) on the fishing hand-line or long-line. Conn. — Meaning 1 is doubtless the original one, and meaning 2 derived from the former, as a certain faith and sense of consecration were associated with the sinker, as well as with the actual “bosten”. A successful sinker was thought to bring good luck when used in fishing. ”

“ Moreover, as the weight of the submerged portion of the rope in addition to the weight of the sinker soon becomes so heavy that a man can not lift it, and therefore can not assure himself by the sense of touch when the lead has reached the bottom; and as the weight of the submerged parts is sufficient at great depths to cause the unwinding of the reel, the Fig. 3.—The Sounding Cylinder as it is hoisted from the Bottom after the Sinker has lifted off. ”

“ A sinker of the size of one’s little finger is inserted at the head, and the bait is cast by hand and drawn rapidly. The rod is not often used in this style of fishing, as the heavy bait is apt to sink ere it can be reeled in. The skin is frequently salted to increase its firmness, and when used must be kept in continual motion, to the great fatigue of the enthusiastic angler. ”

“ The well-sinker has often, in executing his work, to contend with the presence of large volumes of water, which, under ordinary circumstances, must be got rid of by pumping; but by the introduction of iron cylinders, which can be sunk under water, the consequent expense of pumping is saved.
When sinking these cylinders through water-bearing strata, various tools are used to remove the soil from beneath them. The principal is the mizer, which consists of an iron cylinder with an opening on the side and a cutting lip, and which is attached to a set of boring rods and turned from above. ”

“ When the sinker reaches bottom a slight pressure on the winding handle checks the run of the wire, a little added pressure puts the handles in action, and two men can comfortably wind up the lead from the greatest depth. ”

“ A few inches beyond the reaching point of the farthest hook, the sinker, perhaps a quarter of a pound in weight, having a hole bored through its length, is passed upon the line, and there secured by a stout knot at its lower extremity. ”

“ Two ingenious instances of the sinking of contraband goods were found out about the year 1823, and both occurred within that notorious south-east corner of England. The first of these belongs to Sandwich, where three half-ankers of foreign spirits were seized floating, being hidden in a sack, a bag of shingle weighing 30 lbs. being used to act as a sinker. Attached to the sack were an inflated bladder and about three fathoms of twine, together with a small bunch of feathers to act as a buoy to mark the spot. ”

“ It is a way substantial citizens have. You will need to let your sinker strike bottom and then lift it a little, but not too far. A greased lead dropped will show you a variety of bottom. Here are rocks, about which especially the cod congregate and where sometimes giant cunners dwell, there is a sandy stretch which is beloved of the big flounders, which when hooked make a gallant though unsteady fight before you get them up. ”

“ The sinker-like stones of classes I-III present fewer difficulties in their explanation than do the pear-shaped and kindred ones. The use of flat boulder stones with side grooves as net-sinkers is agreed to by all. [84] The fact that here as in the East, and as in the shellmound of West Berkeley, many of these have been found in groups, points almost conclusively to their use as net weights.
Professor Putnam has already called attention to the use of spherical stones (fig. 20) , with a peripherally encircling groove as sinkers. ”

“ For some time I found no bottom with four fathoms, which was the available length of the line, and I was on the point of giving up the task with a feeling that we were clear of the shallows, when I felt the sinker touch bottom.
The boat was once more put about and the lead kept going, but still the depth remained the same, or, rather, slightly shoaling. Again we tacked, but our efforts to find deeper water were unavailing, and at last the galliot ran aground with a slight shock on a bed of soft sand. ”

“ Notched Sinkers. Sinkers for fish nets or lines were made of disk-shaped river pebbles. A pebble and the different types of sinkers are shown in Fig. 13. These were numerous on the surface of the beach of the Columbia River near the head of Priest Rapids. They have two or four notches chipped from each side in the edges. When there are two, the notches are usually at each end; when there are four, they are at the end and side edges. Sometimes, the notches are so crudely made that the edge of the pebble is simply roughened so that a string tied about it at this place would hold. ”

“ Long after the introduction of the modern hook, fishermen still used vaav when fishing with very soft bait. Formerly sinkers were made of klamal or soap-stone, instead of lead as at present, and to this day fishermen speak of the haandline stane or lead stane, a remnant of the ancient practice. Quite recently one of these ancient sinker stones was lifted on a fish hook at a haf seat off the north part of Unst. ”

“ For cleaning out a boat a stiff whisk-broom made of fine birch twigs bound together with wire or fishing-line, as shown at Fig. 11, will be found very useful.
Fig. 12 A and B are hand-made sinkers beaten and carved out of old lead pipe. The carved one, B, is first roughed out with a jack-knife and finished up with fine emery or sand paper. A is beaten into shape with a railroad spike on an anvil or smooth stone. This beating and carving of lead is very pleasant work, the lead being of such an easy and good-natured temper. ”

“ The system of blasting employed in well sinking is that known as the small-shot system, which consists in boring holes from 1 to 3 inches diameter in the rock to be disrupted to receive the charge. The position of these holes is a matter of the highest importance from the point of view of producing the greatest [45] effects with the available means, and to determine them properly requires a complete knowledge of the nature of the forces developed by an explosive agent. This knowledge is rarely possessed by sinkers. ”

“ Fig. 28 is a metal cone wedged in on the tamping with arrows, and Fig. 29 is a barrel-shaped plug.
When all is ready, the sinkers, with the exception of one man whose duty it is to fire the charge, are either drawn out of the shaft, or are removed to some place of safety. This man then, having ascertained by calling and receiving a reply that all are under shelter, applies a light to the fuse, shouts “Bend away,” or some equivalent expression, and is rapidly drawn up the shaft.
To avoid shattering the walls of a shaft, no shot should be placed nearer the side than 12 inches. ”

“ From this description it will be understood that the sinkers, who number from ten to twelve at one time, working four hours at a shift in a pit, say, 14 feet in diameter, are compelled to work in water until all the tubbing is fixed. This [97] causes a serious obstacle to blasting, and in other ways delays the progress of the work.
The tubbing used for damming back the water is generally in segments from 1 foot to 3 feet high, and about 4 feet in length, the thickness [98] varying from half an inch to 33⁄4 inches. It is kept in position by packing with wood behind the joints ”

“ Lake, or salmon trout, may be trolled for successfully with the above lure; but I do not much affect fishing for them. Excellent sport may be had with them, however, early in the season, when they are working near the shore, but they soon retire to water from fifty to seventy feet deep, and can only be caught by deep trolling or buoy-fishing. I have no fancy for sitting in a slow-moving boat for hours, dragging three or four hundred feet of line in deep water, a four-pound sinker tied by six feet of lighter line some twenty feet above the hooks. ”

“ Stone fish-weirs are not uncommon, probably used as they were farther south. One of three deep bays which I measured was a work of great magnitude. Nets were much used, and I have found the flat sinkers on sites far away from the water. ”

“ According to Abbott, one of these relics was found at Salem, in a mortar.83 Stevens says, quoting from Schoolcraft, that the Pennacook Indians used sinkers very much like a plummet in shape.84 In Florida very rough plummets with deep grooves are found in the shell mounds, which were no doubt used as sinkers. The Indians of southern California use them as medicine stones to bring rain; the Eskimo use similar stones as sinkers, but have them perforated at the end. ”

“ A gaudy float is pretty sure to form part of the first angling outfit, and it is useful to keep the bait out of the weeds and to notify the inexperienced angler that a fish is biting. Choose one that is slender in shape and not large. A dry stick makes a good enough extemporaneous float, and if fish are shy may be better than a more showy one.
For sinkers split shot B B size and buckshot or strips of thin lead, such as comes from tea-chests, wound around the line are as good as any and very easily gotten. ”

“ Next to the stove, the sink is the most important piece of kitchen furniture.
The best sinks are of enamel or are made of porcelain. They have a fine wire drainer so that nothing solid will go into the trap and plug the pipes. The Girl Scout uses boiling water, and plenty of it, to flush the sink. She takes pains that no grease gets into the drain to harden there. When grease is accidentally collected, soda and hot water will wash it away, but it should never collect in the pipes.
The Keeper of the House takes pride in a perfectly clean sink. ”