NO. 9 MARINE INVERTEBRATES, ALASKA — MacGINITIE 57 



material and the larger a cupful or more. Sampling could be done 

 only where the ice was thin after the freezing over of a lead. As win- 

 ter progressed and such places formed farther and farther at sea, 

 searching began about 3 miles from shore. The farthest winter sta- 

 tion on the ice was 4.5 miles from shore. After a suitable lead was 

 located it could not be used more than two to four days before the 

 ice became too thick to make holes through it for the grabs. 



Holes were made by hand with an ice-boring tool or an Eskimo- 

 type narrow -bladed tool. The very efficient ice cutter (pi. 2, fig. 2) 

 developed by John Huff, the mechanic at the laboratory, could be 

 used only nearer shore in places that could be reached by a weasel, 

 which was used to haul the ice cutter and furnish power to run it. A 

 weasel could not be driven over thin ice, and it could not go over or 

 around certain ice ridges. Consequently, sampling locations had to 

 be reached on foot, for the inconvenience of securing a dog team ruled 

 out that form of transportation. Heavy clothing, ice-digging gear, 

 sounding gear, thermos jars, and a rifle made traveling difficult. 

 Thermos jugs were essential for taking the collected animals to the 

 laboratory without freezing. The grab with its contained material 

 could not be left in the water near the surface more than a few mo- 

 ments without freezing, for the water temperature averaged about 



-1.5° c. 



Had the layer of mud not been deposited over the rubble zone, grab 

 sampling would have yielded more animals and more data concern- 

 ing them. As it was, such sampling made possible a survey of sev- 

 eral miles of shoreline out to 4.5 miles from shore and established 

 the fact that mud had been deposited over the entire rubble bottom 

 in this area. 



DREDGING, SUMMER, 1950 



Because of the deposition of mud mentioned above, dredging oper- 

 ations in the summer of 1950 were unsatisfactory. These activities 

 showed that the mud gradually became thinner until at 20 miles from 

 shore only a thin layer was encountered. Since this distance was con- 

 sidered the limit of safety with the Ivik (pi. 3, fig. i), even under 

 the most favorable weather conditions there was little opportunity to 

 dredge except where a thick layer of mud still blanketed the normal 

 fauna. Hours were required to work through a haul of this sticky 

 mud, and the proceeds were disappointing. 



