NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE 123 



On Sundays the sailors would sit on deck, busy with their 

 skrimshandy, or would collect in the chart-room to play the 

 phonograph. Juan Oyarzo was very clever with string, and made 

 us belts and watch-fobs in his spare time below. Others would 

 make ship models or amuse themselves with a mouth-organ, or 

 wash clothes. But for the "scientifics," as the sailors called us, 

 there was no difference between Sunday and the next day. Oceano- 

 graphic and magnetic stations alternated regularly. Every day- 

 light hour was spent in the laboratories or computing-room, and 

 even the nights brought their rounds of routine: radio schedules, 

 echo-soundings, atmospheric-electric observations, meteorologi- 

 cal work, star-sights. 



Mr. Erickson was always ready with an excuse for our bad 

 luck. If it was not the biologist's "plus fours," it was something 

 else. He now accused certain members of the party for the long- 

 continued calms because of the grotesque beards they were culti- 

 vating. Soule easily carried away the honors for his baboon 

 decoration. He was dubbed "Admiral Benbow," for had not 

 this intrepid seaman swept clear the Caribbean.^ Who knows, 

 though, but that the jibes of the others were prompted by envy? 



The oceanographic station of September 3 was exceedingly 

 interesting. We had occupied a station within fifteen miles of 

 this spot only five days before, but changes had occurred in that 

 short time. The temperature at the '200-meter depth had dropped 

 about 6° Fahrenheit, and the salinity had followed suit. The 

 current had trebled during the same interval. We realized as 

 never before how important it is to make repeated observations 

 in the same spot, preferably throughout the year, if we want a 

 complete picture of conditions in the sea. 



After four days of head-winds, the long-awaited northeast 

 trades began to blow. This was a welcome event, for we were 

 still twelve hundred miles from Barbados, and our supplies of 

 gasoline and water were getting low. On the same day the sailors 

 captured some bonitos, giving us a change from the monotonous 

 diet of tinned meat. 



Unfortunately our hoped-for trade-wind disappointed us, and 

 we were left becalmed in the afternoon, with an occasional water- 



