44 



THE MUSEUM. 



living beings have been gathered in. 

 And in connection with the scoop it is 

 worth noting that one of the most ef- 

 ficient gatherers of the animals of the 

 deep sea is a common swab used for 

 cleaning the decks of ships — a hairy- 

 hke bundle of rope yarns dangled at 

 the side of the leather scoop. The 

 variety of tiny beings that have been 

 tangled in this device and brought up 

 for man's inspection is very great. 



Simple, and, on the whole, effective 

 as the modern sounding apparatus is, 

 the crews who have used it report 

 some queer accidents. For instance, 

 when the Enterprise was driving across 

 that region of booming storms and pro- 

 digious waves that lies between New 

 Zealand and the Strait of Magellan, 

 the sounding-wire, after a cast in 3, 182 

 fathoms, parted with a jerk, just be- 

 fore the specimen cup that was hooked 

 at the end of the wire reached the sur- 

 face. At this Captain Barker ordered 

 a large shark-hook baited with salt 

 pork and trailed overboard, fn a few 

 minutes a large shark took the hook 

 and was hauled almost on board, when 

 it released itself and disappeared. 

 This, says the captain, was "much to 

 our disappointment, as we had hoped 

 to recover the lost specimen-cup." 

 The captain was confident from the 

 jerk the line had received that the 

 shark had taken the specimen-cup as 

 a bass takes a spoon. During the 

 same passage the wire parted twice 

 from a cause that will seem remarkable 

 to every mechanic. An examination 

 of the broken end revealed on these 

 two occasions that, in spite of the care 

 of drawing the wire, and in spite of the 

 tendency of wire-drawing to eliminate 

 defects in the original billet of steel, a 

 bubble had existed wholly within the 



wire that reduced the cross-section 

 nearly one-half. On the other hand, 

 when a cast was made one day in 2,711 

 fathoms of water — a little over three 

 miles — the heavy cast-iron sinker could 

 not be detached. So they reeled in 

 the wire, sinker and all, and the wire 

 brought the whole safely on board 

 ship. 



It is worth noting that the time of 

 making even a three-mile cast is in the 

 neighborhood of one hour, instead of 

 being an all-day job, as in old times. 

 Thus, in a cast of 2,789 fathoms the 

 wire ran out for forty-six minutes, but 

 it was hauled up in thirty-six minutes. 

 In the cast where the sinker was 

 hauled up the time of getting it on 

 board was two hours and fifty-eight 

 minutes. 



Among the interesting things the ex- 

 plorers have learned definitely is that 

 there are no plants in the greatest 

 depths, and that the plants found any- 

 where in deep water derive no nourish- 

 ment from the soil on which they 

 stand. They are wholly dependent on 

 the water. Another thing learned is 

 that some sea animals live in insepar- 

 able and fixed communities, as man- 

 grove trees live in the salt swamps of 

 the torrid zone. The scientists believe 

 that no ray of light reaches the lowest 

 deep, even though fish with eyes be 

 found there. They think the eyes are 

 for detecting phosphorescent glows in 

 other individuals of the same race, or 

 enemies of other races. And as to the 

 mental calibre of the deep-sea animals, 

 "there seems to be no sufficient ner- 

 vous energy to spare from the cease- 

 less turmoil of the combat which goes 

 on among the creatures of the sea to 

 afford the basis for intellectual devel- 

 opment. All the small share of force 



