A. Agassis — Expedition to the Maldives. 297 



Aet. XXIY. — An Expedition to the Maldives; by 

 Alexander Agassiz. 



[Extract from a letter to the Editor of the Journal, dated Colombo, January 



29, 1902.] 



I have just returned from a trip to the Maldives, where I 

 spent a little over a month examining the coral reefs of the 

 group. The steamer "Amra," chartered from the British India 

 Steam Navigation Co., proved a most serviceable vessel for our 

 purpose. She carried enough coal and provisions for the trip, 

 so we did not return to refit. She was commanded by Captain 

 Win. Pigott, R.N.R., who proved himself a most skilful navi- 

 gator among the maze of atolls through which we steamed for 

 over sixteen hundred miles. Both he and the officers of the 

 u Amra" showed the greatest interest in the objects of the 

 Expedition. Captain Pigott took charge of the sounding 

 machine and superintended himself all the soundings we took 

 (more than 80 in number) ; he became exceedingly skilful at 

 this work, and several of the soundings were taken successfully 

 under most trying circumstances. The "Amra" was equipped 

 with a deep-sea Lucas sounding machine built for me by the 

 Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Co., The machine 

 differs radically from the American type of sounding machine 

 developed by Captain Sigsbee with which I was familiar, and 

 which I had in commission on all my former expeditions. 

 Excellent as is the Sigsbee machine, the Lucas sounder has 

 some advantages in its compactness, in being self-contained and 

 practically automatic. But its greatest advantage lies in the 

 use of malleable wire for sounding in place of the hard-drawn 

 wire in use in American machines. This greatly simplifies the 

 making of splices and lessens immensely the dangers of kinck- 

 ing while handling the wire. We had in addition a Sir William 

 Thomson sounding machine for moderate depths in the lagoons 

 or at our anchorages. I also placed on board a steam winch of 

 the Bacon pattern with a drum large enough to hold 600 to 800 

 fathoms of wire dredging rope. This winch was used for deep 

 sea towing down to 150 fms. and for the few hauls of the 

 dredge we found time to take. 



Dr. W. McM. Wood worth, my son Maximilian and Mr. H. 

 B. Bigelow accompanied me as assistants. My son and Dr. 

 Woodworth took a large number of photographs. Dr. Wood- 

 worth had general charge of the collections ; they were inten- 

 tionally somewhat limited, as we could not hope in the short 

 time at our command to add much to the material obtained by 

 Mr. J. Stanley Gardiner during his prolonged stay at the Mal- 

 dives and Laccadives. Mr. Bigelow collected thirty species of 



