lie left Janes Island in the early morning hours of April 
20th and anchored off Villamil, southern Albemarle, a few minutes 
after ten o^olock. The anchorage is a miserable one, for we encountered 
worse swells here than anywhere else in all the Islands. One must an- 
chor well out from shore, and go in in a small launch or boat, because 
the reefs investing the landing are particularly bad. Fortunately, 
Sehor Bolivar Gil came out to guide us in. Captain Picking had been 
directed to bring out an American survey party of otx four that had 
spent the past three. months on this island, Messrs. Irvine, Douglas, 
lianas, and l^lmer^ k/ 
Wvo^cfe . 
From Villamil we moved around to ^‘Foster Gove’^, Elizabeth 
Bay, southern Albemarle, where the night ivas spent. Very early the 
next morning, April 21st, we moved up to Tagus Cove. Here we spent the 
day and the following night before getting under^^’ay for Cocos Island. 
Through the kindness of Captain Picking, it was possible to 
make a circuit of Culpepper Island, the most northerly of the Galapagos 
group^ ]|a^v^g long been interested in this island, I was now enabled 
to hav^|^‘olose-up view of it ^e - r-tho first— t4mQ.. Its upper levels 
have never been trodden by man and so remain a virgin collecting field, 
the only one in all the arciiipelago. To get up on this island would 
require special equipment, particularly scaffolding, as on almost 
every side the bare, almost perpendicular cliffs run up several hundred 
feet or more. 
We raised Cocos in the early morning of April 24th. Before 
anchoring in Chatham Bay, the island was circumnavigated. For the 
first time in several visits to Cocos Island did I see any of the re- 
putedly heavy fains, and I can now attest that they do come down with 
full tropical intensity, though they are of comparatively short dura- 
tion. On our last day at Cocos, Saturday, April 26th, ixica®kxxjixK 3 i- 
asci accompanied by Lt. Ralph 
Ernest, Civil Engineer, U.S.S., I took advantage of the opportunity 
to obtain additional seeds of the rare Rooseveltia palm from one of a 
stand of the trees from the heights above Chat hSi "Bay • 
and 
sidered 
No time was lii^^t on the run back to Balboa, where we , 
ar^g^ed at 7 o* clock ^"le mOitgiing of the 30th. HereixOaptain Pickinf^ 
L Ixhad a conferejree with AdJrtiral F. H. Sadler ho uld be/ooif^ 
bs-vgonfi^ntial. /Although ''thQ^ Navy has^^^ermissid^ froi]p^"the 
Ecuadorian g^^i^^ient to^establish air "^a4^suMarine bases Xn/fee 
Galapagos, X until really i^jai^ssary. Any pi^^ering 
in the isla^s wb^^ld, 
of nec^sity, devolve upolK^he Smithsonipn if und^**t^en ^ all. 
va 1 "tal ght^'&o^me t 
be 
JU 
ht'^^ o f pr iorilry 
V 
r- ne’T.af^ 
the would peim!?i4^ the location #f thd^ laboratory 
on what may now be considered the most ^^vorable sit?^e in the Islands. 
