NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE 



283 



than usual, because we were now using the last of our 

 and we could not afford to sacrifice it to save time 

 Ault was forced to don the diving-helmet to locate 

 which seemed to be in the vicinity of the ship's keel, 

 this apparatus at sea is dangerous at best and we were 

 pitching so badly that it was difficult for him to keep 

 on his shoulders. It was found that the piano-wire 



piano-wire 

 Captain 

 the tangle 

 The use of 

 rolling and 

 the helmet 

 had fouled 



Observing the Flight of a Pilot-balloon 



Captain Ault devised a special chair for the sextant in which the weight of the instru- 

 ment is taken up by a coil spring eliminating the tremendous physical strain on the observ- 

 er's arms in holding up the sextant from 20 to 70 minutes. 



the oscillator. By lowering a lead weight down this wire the 

 obstruction was cleared without a loss of equipment. 



While we were in Japan the stev/ard had bought a canary. He 

 found that it did not sing well enough and before he left port he 

 bought it a portable phonograph and a "canary-record" to give 

 it encouragement. He had bought a second record at the same 

 time, some sort of a Danish dance-tune. So from morning till 

 night we heard either one or the other of these selections. It got 

 on our nerves so much that in self defense we presented him with 

 some of our own discs. 



