NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE 103 



Commenting on our experiences in Germany, Captain Ault 

 says : 



"Our stay in Germany has been unusually profitable 

 and inspiring. To meet so many scientists who are 

 enthusiastic about our prospects, who indicate so 

 strongly the importance of the data we are securing, and 

 who are so keenly interested in the many problems to be 

 solved, has given us a better view of the task before us, 

 and we shall go ahead with renewed enthusiasm." 



On July 7, two weeks behind schedule, we said good-bye to our 

 German friends. We were towed down the river past Heligoland 

 before we picked up enough breeze to fill the sails. 



HAMBURG TO REYKJAVIK TO BRIDGETOWN TO 



PANAMA 



The vessel was now well equipped for oceanographic research, 

 and we were all eager to give the equipment its first trials. The 

 new resistance-thermometer equipment, for measuring humidity 

 at three levels above the sea, was recording satisfactorily. Re- 

 pairs had been well done to the vessel and the machinery, and 

 the party was in a fine frame of mind for the long voyage to the 

 West Indies by way of Iceland. 



We headed due west to get clear of the coast, then turned north- 

 ward a bit to skirt the bold cliffs of the Shetlands and the Faroes. 

 Vivid green pastures were set here and there in these forbidding 

 rock-masses, like unmined emeralds; and occasionally a whole 

 tal)le-top of green rolled upwards from the precipitous coasts. 



Between the Faroes and the southeast corner of Iceland we 

 encountered some of the roughest water of the cruise. On July 

 14 the wind hauled ahead and for six days we fought for every 

 mile westward by using our engine and fore-and-aft sails. It 

 began to look like a repetition of our experience in entering the 

 English Channel. 



On July 15 we sighted the dazzling Oraefa Glacier on the 

 southern coast of Iceland. Although it was sixty miles away, 

 this stupendous ice-mass, seven thousand feet high and fifty 



