NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE 

 WASHINGTON TO PLYMOUTH TO HAMBURG 



The long months of planning and refitting were over. Sails 

 were bent on the yards that for six years had been only roosts 

 for the birds of the Potomac River. Provisions for six months 

 were stowed in the lazarette aft. The whole array of scientific 

 equipment had passed final tests. The carefully chosen crew of 

 deep-water sailors had been broken in to new duties. All were 

 impatient for the signal to cast off the lines which held us to the 

 Seventh Street dock in Washington, our home port. 



But it was not yet nine o'clock, our scheduled hour of depar- 

 ture. Every moment was precious. There were last-minute 

 instuctions, last-minute purchases. Friends and relatives had 

 collected on the little wharf, until it fairly groaned. Men and 

 women who had labored for weeks to prepare us for the three- 

 year voyage, were on hand to see us off. 



So on May 1, 1928, the seventh cruise of the Carnegie began. 

 Whistles roared from the harbor craft, and pleasure boats jockeyed 

 for position to escort us down the Potomac. At midnight we 

 reached the mouth of the St. Mary's River in Chesapeake Bay, 

 and anchored till dawn. We were to spend four busy days here, 

 "swinging ship," to be sure that our magnetic instruments and 

 standard compass were not influenced by the new oceanographic 

 equipment. A magnetic station had been set up on shore where 

 simultaneous magnetic observations were made. To ensure ideal 

 conditions for the land-station, a magnetic survey of both sides 

 of Chesapeake Bay had been completed a few days previously. 

 Six "swings" of the ship on different headings were made, before 

 everyone was satisfied that all was well. 



The radio outfit was given its first trials here. Schedules were 

 made with the Naval Research Laboratory and with headquarters 

 of the American Radio Relay League. And throughout these 

 four days, the atmospheric-electric instruments were being com- 

 pared with similar ones ashore whose accuracy was well known. 



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