OCEANOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED STATES 307 



particular system shown there, their casing really projects up out of 

 the bottom and they drill clear out over the side and then, to counter- 

 balance it, you can see we have a low dark spot on the side. Here is 

 essentially a closeup view of the bottom of the drilling platform and 

 the rig as it rises. 



The advantage of this, from the point of view of these operators, 

 is that they can simply pull away from the completed hole when it 

 is finished whereas the other vessels drill down through the center and 

 they require a bottom completion. This has no bearing on the drill- 

 ing capability, but only on the oil production and consequently does 

 not influence us very much. 



This is a picture [indicating] of the so-called draw works. A draw 

 works is, is a hoist. Ths? ca])ability for going deep with one of these 

 rigs is very largely dependent upon the size of this particular machine. 

 I will not go into the details of it now, but there [indicating] is the 

 drilling platform and the rotary table of the Nola I. 



We are now in California, Mr. Miller, and this is the Cuss I [indi- 

 cating] as it is drilling not far from Santa Barbara. 



Mr. Miller. You can see how much bluer the water is there. 



Mr. Bascom. Actually, these are really monstrous rigs and you do 

 not realize the scale of tliem until you get aboard them. 



This is the center of the anchoring system of the Ouss I in which 

 they have six anchors leading off the hea\n>7 cable like a cat's cradle in 

 all directions to work in the deep sea. This is the part that we will 

 have to modify in this particular vessel. We have got to arrange the 

 hole when it gets in dee]:) water. There you start to get some idea of 

 the scale of this thing when you get aboard and see that the pipes in 

 the foreground are what are called triples. 



In other words, three joints of pipe for a total of about 60 feet in 

 length. 



The big yellow block in the lower part, of the block and tackle 

 weighs 6 tons by itself and is capable of handling weights up to 500 

 tons. This is a pretty good-sized piece of machinery. 



This [indicating] is looking up a little more steeply into the upper 

 part of the derrick. You see that same yellow block and beneath it 

 is the so-called swivel in which the mud is circulated through that 

 hoist on the right [indicating] and down through the drill pipe which 

 is exactly the center. 



This is a picture [indicating] of the complete controls of the Cuss I 

 when it is drilling. This man stands at that platform and operates 

 the whole thing. 



This particular operation [indicating] is setting pipe. You can see 

 the size of the drill pipe and in this case they are using 4i/2-inch pipe 

 to drill holes about 7,000 feet deep in about 300 feet of water at the 

 time of this operation. 



Here [indicating] is a view of how the pipe is racked horizontally 

 and this particular joint of pipe has just been lowered from this dou- 

 ble rod on the left part of the elevator and it low-ers it into this rack 

 where it automatically slides out through that trough and is picked up 

 by chains and set off to one side. This is all done automatically. 



This is the part [indicating] where the drill stem goes down through 

 the ship and looks like this [indicating]. There is a big wheel in the 

 middle of the ship and once you are on board you veiy soon forget 



