114 ALBACORA 



As with all scientific trips, however, the goals that we 

 had set when we began, and the directions into which 

 our findings led us, differed considerably. 



Dr. Francis 0. Schmitt, professor of biology at 

 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been working 

 fifteen years on the chemistry of nerves. When I read 

 that he was using little Atlantic squid, because they had 

 the largest nerve of any animal alive, I wrote to him 

 about the giant squid that we were catching off Peru 

 and Chile. Dr. Schmitt asked us to send a few samples 

 of dissected nerve. Luis Rivas sent these and Dr. Schmitt 

 was so excited with the samples that he asked us to help 

 organize another expedition, not to chase albacora, but 

 to capture squid and to keep them alive. 



"These nerve sheaths are forty to sixty times the size 

 of the ones in our squid," he told me later. "The speed 

 of our progress may depend on the results obtained from 

 the Pacific squid." 



Not as potentially important, but more immediately 

 practical than the outsized nerve tissue, is the supply 

 of caffeine that can be found in the Humboldt. Caffeine 

 does not serve merely to keep coffee drinkers from en- 

 joying peaceful sleep. It has real values. One company 

 found that pure caffeine could be obtained from the 

 urine and ova of certain billfish. 



A major project was about to begin when food au- 

 thorities got wind of it and said no. Caffeine is a 

 chemical and, chemically speaking, the source of the 

 product is unimportant; but I suppose telling sometliing 



