78 THE LAST CRUISE OF THE CARNEGIE 



worst storm of the passage. We were forced to heave to and ride 

 it out. Several of the bronze fittings in the rigging were carried 

 away. However, damage was not so serious that emergency 

 repairs could not be made. The vessel was having a bad time 

 of it. Time and time again seas swept the quarter-deck, something 

 which had rarely occurred on previous cruises. This was prob- 

 ably due to the load carried aft. The new winch, generators, 

 batteries, and so on, used for our oceanographic work, weighed 

 many tons. 



The fogs that set in on the 30th did not add to the joy of life. 

 They interrupted the declination-observations, and kept a man 

 busy day and night at the hand-operated foghorn. It began to 

 look bad for our schedule. We had left Newport News nine days 

 late, and the head-winds we were encountering gave us a run, one 

 day, of 17 miles. In fact, we averaged only 29 miles a day during 

 the first week in June. 



But on May 31 we had splendid conditions for the oceanographic 

 station. The wind had dropped almost to a calm. We collected 

 the first bottom-sample of the cruise. The snapper was lowered 

 at the end of the bottle wire, and brought up light gray ooze from 

 almost 3000 meters. This material, which consists of the skeletons 

 of untold billions of tiny globigerina organisms, covers the greater 

 part of the ocean-bottom, and is often deposited in layers many 

 feet deep. 



In the following words Captain Ault describes our fight to gain 

 entrance to the English channel: 



"And so through the storms, calms, and head- winds 

 of the North Atlantic we approached our first port, Ply- 

 mouth, England. But first we were made to feel the 

 temper of the Old Man of the Sea. For ten days before 

 we could enter the English Channel, we had to tack back 

 and forth, and run the engine against a wind which 

 seemed nailed down to the east point of the compass. 

 When we were within a few hours of Bishop Rock Light, 

 Scilly Islands, it began to rain; fog and mist closed in 

 on us, and we were compelled to stand out to sea as we 

 had repeatedly done. 



