46 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



few scoops with a hand net would collect a mass 

 equal to a long haul through average ocean 

 water. 



When I realized to the full the significance of 

 this tremendous phenomenon, I determined to 

 spend a day or two in following the current rip 

 slowly along, studying it as I went. Within a 

 half hour of our reaching it a mighty school of 

 dolphins came down the line, five or six hundred 

 of them, leaping and playing, jumping high into 

 the air, and presumably feeding as they went. For 

 a while their long-drawn-out front, with its con- 

 tinual spouts of spray thrown high in air, looked 

 like a counter current rip, extending in another 

 direction. 



For the first time I fully appreciated the ad- 

 vantages of the many strange contrivances I had 

 invented for reaching down or getting close to the 

 water. The pulpit now came in for constant use. 

 In the Atlantic we had usually to keep this affair 

 high above the surface, for the Arcturus would 

 plunge and dip her nose so deeply that unless it was 

 swung well up, one ran the danger of being washed 

 out of it. Here the comfortably roomy iron floor- 

 ing with its waist-high railing extending all around 

 it, was lowered until it was almost at the surface, 

 and here with harpoon or dip-net one stood, ap- 

 proximating the wonderful experience of St. Peter, 

 at least in the early stage of his experiment. 



From the stern of the vessel the crew had a 

 veritable portiere of hand lines baited for fish of 

 all sizes from triggers to sharks. The gang- 



