Object data
lead, iron and rope
length 125.5 cm
anonymous
Sounding Lead
? Netherlands, c. 1810
Conservation
- Ab Hoving, June 2010: retouched
Provenance
...; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1883
Object number: NG-MC-1330
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Sounding lead with a strap. The upper part is made of iron with a slit for the register.
Sounding leads are used to determine the depth of the water below a ship. This type of a deep-sea hand lead was already in use as early as the seventeenth century.1 The lead was connected to a long rope with markings to measure the number of fathoms of water. In the bottom a hollow is positioned, which, when coated with some tallow, can be used to take samples of the seabed.
Literature
J.M. Obreen et al., handwritten inventory list for items 944 to 1431, 1884, manuscript in HNA 476 RMA, inv. no. 1089, no. 1330
Citation
J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'anonymous, Sounding Lead, Netherlands, c. 1810', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.245132
(accessed 28 December 2024 18:12:56).