284 THE LAST CRUISE OF THE CARNEGIE 



On the voyage from Guam, Captain Ault had designed a more 

 elaborate sextant-chair than 'the one we had been using. It was 

 constructed in Japan and we were now giving it a trial. The whole 

 chair was mounted on an azimuth-turntable so that the sextant 

 observer could not only give the theodolite man the altitude but 

 also an approximate horizontal angle, should the latter lose track 

 of the balloon. It was found to check within two degrees on the 

 average — much better than expected. 



Our bottom-sampling program was very successful. Leaving 

 the weights at the bottom reduced considerably the time of 

 operation and saved power. At several stations duplicate sam- 

 ples were obtained, one to be used by the American Telephone 

 and Telegraph Company in experimental work on corrosion of 

 various metals. 



The frequent use of our main engine during the first week had 

 so seriously depleted our stock of gasoline that we made plans 

 to stop in at Dutch Harbor, Unalaska, to refill our tanks. How- 

 ever, after we had picked up the strong southwesterly winds we 

 decided to stay on our course. 



The strong winds and currents encountered in the latter half 

 of this passage resulted in large angles of the aluminum-bronze 

 wire to which the reversing deep-sea thermometers and bottles 

 were attached. Here we met with an old difficulty; the bronze 

 messengers sent down to release the bottles descended with too 

 little force to be effective. By drilling out large holes in the mes- 

 sengers and filling them with lead the weight was almost doubled. 

 This expedient was so successful that we were able to secure data 

 on salt-content and temperature down to a depth of 3,500 meters 

 with a wind of "force 6" on the Beaufort scale. 



We crossed the 180th meridian on July 14 so that we repeated 

 that date. The sea was so rough that Captain Ault gave orders 

 to break the usual routine by making magnetic observations as 

 on the previous day instead of heaving to for oceanographic work. 



On July 6 while waiting for the deep-sea thermometers to reach 

 the temperature of the surrounding water we amused ourselves 

 by catching a "gooney" or black-footed albatross. These enor- 

 mous birds, so graceful in flight, are clumsy beyond belief 



