FISHING BY MEANS OF EXPLOSIVES.

Evening Star, Issue 3651, 4 November 1874, Page 3

FISHING BY MEANS OF EXPLOSIVES.

At a recent meeting of the California Academy of Sciences, Mr A. W. Chase, of the U.S. Coast Survey, read a short paper on the capture of fish by the explosion of cartridges by means of a fusee under water, which he has practised with much success. He says : I have found that the ordinary waterproof fusee will burn aboutonefoot to every twenty-five seconds, and by experiment tuat a cartridge will explode in from four to six fathoms with from three to four inches of fuse. I have, however, made no exact experiment on the subject. The shock of the explosion is most severely felt downwards, as the resistance is greater ; and the different varieties of sea-fish found near the rocky shores of the islands as a rule being found on or near the bottom, it is desirable to explode your cartridge about midway between the surface of the water and the recks beneath, as you thus reach the deep-lying fish and those, like mackerel aud smelt, which swim between.” The modus ojierandi adopted by Mr Chase was to take a skiff and row out to the kelp beds surrounding the island. “Here, in six or eight fathoms of water, the bottom is distinctly visible. When an unusually large school of fish would swim by, I would quietly light the fuse, aud drop the cartridge into the water gently. If the water was, say, eight fathoms deep, I would graduate the fuse for explosion at four. The cartridge would slowly sink—generally in a spiral—and a few bubbles of air or smoke arise to the surface. When the fire reached the fulminate of mercury, there would be a sudden white flush, then a sharp, quick detonation, the blow striking the bottom of the skiff as if some one had struck it with a hammer. Then, in a space of time varying from eight to ten minutes, every fish within a radius of forty or fifty yards would slowly come to the surface. .Those within the immediate vicinity of the explosion, of course, were killed by bursting the hi adder and injury to the large intestines, and had to be speared up from the bottom. Those, however, at a greater distance would be simply stunned, and could be taken in a net. Care had to be taken to avoid touching those only slightly stunned until the net was fairly around them, as the slightest blow would arouse them from their torpor.”