70 THE LAST CRUISE OF THE CARNEGIE 



May 12 was for several reasons a memorable date in our cal- 

 endar. We logged our best day's run of the cruise, 282 nautical 

 miles, of which the current accounted for only six. Once out of 

 sight of land we had met a glorious south wind which bounced 

 us along over a smooth sea at ten to twelve knots — a propitious 

 beginning for our three-year voyage. 



In the afternoon we hove to for our first oceanographic station. 

 The sea had become more choppy, and the wind was so strong that 

 the ship drifted considerably. Nevertheless, we lowered our 

 thermometers and collecting bottles in series to a depth of 2000 

 meters, and put out our silk-nets to capture plankton. 



While we were hove to the giant Italian liner Conte Grande 

 appeared on the horizon, and changed her course so as to pass 

 our stern by a few hundred yards. The rails were lined with 

 passengers who shouted their greetings and frantically waved 

 their handkerchiefs. It seemed that they were as glad to see us 

 as they would have been to see the Statue of Liberty — the Ameri- 

 can flag flying from our masthead was to them a symbol of the 

 New World to which they were going. They would have been 

 surprised indeed had they waited to see the "fish" we were catch- 

 ing with our long lines: temperatures, hydrogen ions, chemical 

 salts, and plankton. Certainly less exciting game than bizarre 

 deep-sea monsters, but more valuable to science. 



We encountered difficulties at the very outset. The releasing 

 devices for the tow-nets were found to be too feeble for the strain 

 caused by the rapid drift of the ship. This meant that we could 

 only determine the kind of plankton in the sea, but not the num- 

 ber of each kind — until we obtained our plankton-pump from Nor- 

 way. 



The thermometers chosen for the lowest Nansen bottles were 

 of too low a range. We had expected much lower temperatures 

 in the deeps than we actually encountered at this station. Ordi- 

 narily the water from the bottom is only two or three degrees 

 above freezing, while the surface may be as warm as 82° Fahren- 

 heit. 



The sea was too rough for microscopic study of the plankton- 

 catches. But we could get some idea of the gorgeous colors and 



