Tan′gles.
（Nautical.) A device used in dredging, for sweeping the sea-bed for obtaining delicate forms of marine life, too small or frangible to be obtained by ordinary dredging. The tangles, in a coarse form, has long been used in the sponge and coral fisheries. It consists of a bar 3 1/2 feet long, supported on runners, and serving to drag after it a series of masses of hemp, each of which is a sort of mop. The fibers of the hemp entangle the smaller crustaceans and many of the more minute and delicate forms of marine life without breaking or injuring them as the dredge is apt to. Chains which are wrapped in the hempen swabs by their weight serve to keep the latter down to the work. Starfishes and sea-urchins, being prickly, are most readily caught by the tangles; in frequent instances immense masses of them are thus swept up and brought to the surface. See trawl.
