THE NIMBUS COLLECTING EXPEDITION TO THE 

 GULF OF CALIFORNIA 



By PAUL BARTSCH 



Curator, Divisions of Mollusks and Ccnozoic Invertebrates 



U. S. National Museum 



The Nimbus, a 36^-foot cutter owned by Russell Hawkins, Jr., 

 manned by Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins, left San Diego Bay in De- 

 cember 1939 for a mollusk-collecting cruise along the west coast of 

 Mexico and the Gulf of California. The boat was supplied by the 

 United States National Museum with the necessary collecting equip- 

 ment for such an undertaking. Of this cruise we extract certain 

 notes from Mr. Hawkins' journal : 



"Mrs. Hawkins and I stowed ourselves among the heterogeneous 

 cargo of quinine, canned soup, and spare parts, consoled with the 

 knowledge that any forgotten necessity could never have been 

 squeezed aboard, for the Nimbus was laden 3 inches below her normal 

 water line. 



"The equipment for collecting mollusks supplied by the Museum 

 was remarkably well adapted for such a small craft. Two 16-gallon 

 alcohol tanks, twelve 1 -gallon jars, and twenty-four pint bottles were 

 securely packed in six wooden chests, which we fastened in the space 

 ordinarily used as a double bunk, and unfortunately the most com- 

 fortable seat in the main cabin. Another chest, lashed to the 

 floor under the table in the main cabin, contained two Lewis 

 dredges, a larger dredge, spare netting, canvas, cheesecloth, and 

 other material for preserving and identifying our specimens. 



"Short-handed as we were, we nosed into every possible anchor- 

 age, and some which normally would have been impossible. So from 

 San Diego to Cape San Lucas we had only six or seven nights at sea. 

 One night at sea was not too bad, but two consecutive nights were, 

 to put it mildly, very tiring. Frequent anchorages made it possible 

 for us to dredge and explore many of the coves and bays which 

 might otherwise have slipped by unknown. Mrs. Hawkins and I 

 together made a heavy load for our dinghy, so usually I put her 

 ashore, and while she searched the beach, pools, and rocks, I towed 

 the Lewis dredge over the stern of the dinghy. The larger dredge 

 worked well astern of the Nimbus, but we had to conserve gasoline 

 and it was pretty heavy for us to handle alone, so we were able to use 

 it only occasionally on the west side of the Peninsula of Baja 

 California." 



53 



