Hand Tools Archive
Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA
I apologize in advance for the poor picture quality here; the item below was in a display case, in a room where flash photography wasn't permitted. I also want to apologize for possibly reposting on this subject since the last time we were in Crater Lake several years back; alas, the search tool here is as broken as my memory.
At any rate, we were visiting Crater Lake National Park, one of nature's cathedrals, recently, and I got a picture of an item I've seen before. This was used in measuring the depth of the lake during the early research on the lake: a weight on a cable. Since the depth was measured at 1,996 feet, that meant a lot of cable and a lot of winding. It sure looks to me like the expedition's equipment technician made good use of a breast drill as the crank to wind the cable out and in:
More knowledgeable folk than I am may recognize the make of the drill.