SARGASSO ^A^EDS AND WAVES 29 



trawling is like an enormous — and expensive — 

 grab-bag; after all the time and labor involved in 

 putting over and bringing in the apparatus, the 

 sum total of the effort may be nothing at all, or 

 it may be a host of beings strange and rare, or 

 absolutely new. The oceanographer can trust only 

 to luck — aided somewhat, of course, by a knowledge 

 of the sort of ocean bottom over which life is most 

 likely to be abundant, and in some localities, by the 

 experience of his predecessors in the work. 



Finally the shout was heard, "Beaters wanted!" 

 This sounded like an advertisement by the owner 

 of a pheasant preserve, but was really the result 

 of finding that the best way to dry the incoming 

 cable was to knock off the water with heavy sticks. 

 Two at a time, we took fifteen-minute turns in 

 earnestly belaboring the big steel rope before it 

 reached the drum on its return journey. At this 

 moment listen, if you please, to the sounds on the 

 deck of the Arcturus: The staccato whacks of the 

 beaters, pounding in rhythm to the chanty of some 

 ballad of old England, learned from our negro 

 paddlers in Guiana jungles; this mingled with the 

 rumble and clank of the winch; in the laboratory 

 typewriters clattered, the Van Slyke machine 

 operated by the chemist thudded swiftly; photo- 

 graphic lights fizzed and spluttered in the bridge- 

 casing; the second mate, sacrificing his watch be- 

 low, mended nets on the whirring electric sewing- 

 machine; while over the mechanical uproar of the 

 Arcturus sounded the shrill chatters and yelps that 

 told of an argument between Chiriqui and the ship's 



