THE DEEPEST DEPTHS 



227 



was the British surveying vessel Penguin in 1895^. Her Captain was 

 Andrew Balfour, who had been a sub-lieutenant in Challenger 

 during the Expedition and ever since had been fired with en- 

 thusiasm to find a great depth. He took two soundings with piano 

 wire on a steam sounding machine which had by then come into 

 use ; these soundings were taken in the Kermadec Trench, in the 

 South Pacific, north-east of New Zealand. On the first occasion, 

 as so often happens, the wire parted while the Baillie rod was 

 being hauled to the surface. As the rod is comparatively light, 

 the parting of the wire is not readily apparent and it is only as 

 the hours pass that the surveyors, constantly feeling the wire. 



Movable rod 



Detachable Weights 

 and Ring 



Catch passing inside 

 tube detaches the 

 weights when seabed 

 is struck. 



Sample Tube 



Baillie Rod and Sinkers 



begin to suspect that the worst has happened, for it takes over 

 four hours to haul in the sampler from ^000 fathoms. It took 

 Andrew Balfour far longer, for when he recorded a sounding of 

 ^1^5- fathoms he insisted that to avoid parting the wire again, 

 watches of two seamen at a time hove in the whole five miles of 

 wire by using the manual handles on the machine, so that no 

 undue strain of an unfeeling steam engine would be imparted to 

 the thin wire as the ship rolled in the heavy swell. He never left 

 the winch himself throughout the whole long day, and thankfully 

 and excitedly he ladled the sediment from the sampler onto a 

 plate he had kept beside him in readiness for this supreme 

 moment. 



