WHERE CURRENTS RIP 45 



The birds were the most noticeable inhabitants 

 of this world of two dimensions, boobies of several 

 species, stormy petrels, tropic and frigatebirds, 

 soaring or feeding. Still more interesting than 

 these was a flock of about two hundred northern 

 phalaropes, strange little sandpipers which nest 

 in Alaska and spend the entire winter far out of 

 sight of land. These were massed in a close flock 

 and flushed time after time just ahead of the 

 steamer in the line of the rip. When finally they 

 went on ahead for a half mile, they followed ex- 

 actly every zigzag of the line of foam, keeping 

 precisely to each bend of the denticulation of the 

 current juncture. Twice after this I saw several 

 of the little chaps cheating us of our belief that they 

 never touched land except in the far north to breed, 

 for they were perched on floating logs, picking out 

 edibles from the crevices. 



During the last few days we had observed a 

 fair number of sea creatures, but here was a con- 

 centration of organisms greater than I have ever 

 seen — the larger dotting the water and making 

 visible its depths, the minute so abundant that in 

 places they were of the consistency of soup. We 

 had to give up trawling with the silk nets for two 

 reasons; in the first place the throw and shift of 

 the currents was so strong hereabouts that the 

 nets and lines were often swept beneath the keel 

 and in dangerous proximity to the propellers. 

 Again, the amount of floating organisms was so 

 great that the silk bags would fill immediately with 

 a weight which strained them to the utmost. A 





