sounding-line Naut.
[sounding vbl. n.2]
A line used in sounding the depth of water; also, line or other material forming this.
In early use distinguished from the deep sea line: see deep sea.
| 1336 Acc. Exch. K.R. 19/31 m. 4, In .j. petra cordis de canabo..pro vno soundynglyne inde faciendo. 1627 Capt. Smith Seaman's Gram. ix. 44 Fetch the Sounding line, this is bigger than the Dipsie line. [Hence in Phillips, etc.] 1777 Robertson Hist. Amer. ii. (1783) I. 104 As his course lay through seas which had not formerly been visited, the sounding-line, or instruments for observation, were continually in his hands. 1845 Gosse Ocean Introd. (1849) 6 In many places no length of sounding line has yet been able to reach the bottom. 1860 Maury Phys. Geog. (Low) xiii. §567 His sounding-line was an iron wire more than eleven miles in length. |