318 ALEXANDER AGASSIZ 



the trades, and I knew enough of trades to know that 

 when they blow very little can be done. Yet when I 

 cabled Kent he reaffirmed his opinion, and got Wharton 

 to agree with him to boot. 



All captains here say I should have come in Novem- 

 ber and December before the hurricane season when 

 every day counts for work almost. It is hot then but 

 calm, now it is not hot and anything but calm. It is 

 aggravating, to say the least, to lead such a failure, and 

 the more so, as I never went on any expedition better 

 equipped in men and material, and hoped besides the reef 

 examination to make a great collection of pelagic ma- 

 terial. But I hauled twice only, and then it was blowing 

 so hard that in so small a boat as the Croyden I did not 

 dare to do much for fear of carrying all my tackle away 

 the way she rolled and pitched. I have, however, seen 

 enough of the reef to satisfy myself of its mode of for- 

 mation, and I fancy the subsidence people will not have 

 much ground for support. It is very much like the 

 Florida reef, only on an immense scale. 



I intended to have pushed through to Thursday Is- 

 land, in spite of the bad weather which everybody who 

 knows anything prophesies, but the steamer I was to 

 take at end of May from there for Hong-Kong has been 

 lost in China Sea and is replaced by a cargo steamer 

 carrying no passengers. The same is the case with the 

 Batavia steamers — they take no passengers; so that 

 unless I could stay till end of June there was no chance 

 of my getting away from Thursday Island unless I was 

 prepared to buck five hundred miles of trades in a small 

 steamer of little power, like my boat. That I could not 

 see my way to do. So I give up the trip and go back 

 via Naples, the 27th. 



