The dredge comes up variously freighted according to the locality, and the next step is to examine its contents and to store the objects of search for future use. In a regularly organized dredging expedition a frame or platform is often erected with a ledge round it to receive the contents of the dredge, but it does well enough to capsize it on an old piece of tarpaulin. There are two ways of emptying the dredge; we may either turn it up and pour out its contents by the mouth, or we may have a contrivance by which the bottom of the bag is made to unlace. The first plan is the simpler and the one more usually adopted; the second has the advantage of letting the mass slide out more smoothly and easily, but the lacing introduces rather a damaging complication, as it is apt to loosen or give way. Any objects visible on the surface of the heap are now carefully removed, and placed for identification in jars or tubs of sea-water, of which there should be a number secured in some form of bottle basket, standing ready. The heap should not be much disturbed, for the delicate objects contained in it have already been unavoidably subjected to a good deal of rough usage, and the less friction among the stones the better. _Examination of the Catch. Sifting._--The sorting of the catch is facilitated by sifting. The sieves used in early English expeditions were of various sizes and meshes, each sieve having a finer mesh than the sieve smaller than itself. In use the whole were put together in the form of a nest, the smallest one with the coarsest mesh being on top. A little of the dredge's contents were then put in the top sieve, and the whole set moved gently up and down in a tub of sea water by handles attached to the bottom one. Objects of different sizes are thus left in different sieves. A simple but effective plan is to let the sieves of various sized mesh fit accurately on each other like lids, the coarsest on top, and to pour water upon material placed on the top one. In the United States Bureau of Fisheries ship "Albatross" these sieves are raised to form a table and the water is led on them from a hose: the very finest objects or sediments are retained by the waste water escaping from a catchment tub by muslin bags let into its sides. Any of these methods are preferable to sifting by the agitation of a sieve hung over the side, as in the last anything passing through the sieve is gone past recall.