256 THE LAST CRUISE OF THE CARNEGIE 



little launch sped away a voice was heard in the distance shouting 

 "Thanks for the buggy-ride, Captain!" The incident cost us 

 a day and a half of precious time, and a considerable quantity of 

 gasoline. We later heard that the youngsters had hatched the 

 plan carefully, after getting a hint from a movie. They had even 

 rehearsed the act the night previous to our departure so that 

 no hitch would occur in their hiding in the forepeak. They were 

 driven from their lair by the stifling odors of the locker. One of 

 these boys had twice previously begged Captain Ault for a job 

 on board, but had been refused. 



And so we turned the ship about to catch the trade-wind which 

 had begun to spring up, and headed again towards the Union 

 Islands on our way to Guam. 



The return to Apia with the stowaways at least brought us a 

 fair wind, although it had been expensive of gasoline. Jones had 

 taken advantage of the delay by building a new amplifier, using 

 the transformers received in Pago Pago. Paul started spring 

 housecleaning in the laboratory. Parkinson set up his table on 

 deck for the tedious task of replacing defective silver-chloride 

 cells, hundreds of which were used in the atmospheric-electric 

 batteries. 



The first oceanographic station was occupied on the morning 

 of April 2'2. The sounding-machine, which had been remodeled 

 to hold six thousand meters of piano-wire, was given a trial; 

 but this time the control-handle broke. After one more attempt 

 to use this machine for bottom-sampling, it was discarded; for 

 again we lost a "snapper" by the parting of the wire during a 

 sudden roll of the vessel. 



At the station on April 24, a much more serious loss of equip- 

 ment was narrowly averted. The heart strands on our aluminum- 

 bronze wire, which was used to lower the reversing Nansen bottles, 

 broke in seven or eight places. This wire had been in use since 

 leaving Panama, and apparently had become invisibly corroded. 

 It was necessary to discard about twenty-seven hundred meters. 

 Had this wire completely parted, we should have lost many hun- 

 dred dollars worth of instruments, and should have been seriously 

 handicapped until replacements could be made from Europe. 



