112 
113 
UP .he 
AND 
The President 
DOWN 
witfc BRYAN MORSE 
T hey ten me P. D. R. has more 
fishing rods, lines, reels, gad- 
gets and whatnots than the late 
Warren G. 
Harding had 
golf clubs. 
Harding had 
a White House 
room filled with 
clubs, bags, 
balls and nov-i 
elties. Even a 
10-foot club pre- 
sented by Wash- 
i n g 1 0 n golf 
writers which 
boasted a clock 
scoring device, 
hot and cold 
running water 
and the like. 
F. D. R. went West with a whole 
Pullman filled with fishing equip- 
ment, it was learned. And now 
aboard the U. S. S. Houston, 
Whose skipper, it is related, is an 
ardent angler, he is about to try 
conclusions with the denizens of 
the deep discovered some years 
back by Zane Grey. 
Only recently Dr. Waldo 
Schmidt, of the U. S. Museum, 
who used to be a beetlebrowed 
serious high school cadet at old 
Central, gave the President the 
lowdown on the territory visited 
most often by scientific parties. 
Dr. William Beebe, in his “Arc- 
turus Adventures,” and many 
others have written monographs 
without end on the famous Gala- 
pagos Islands. Once the famous 
Prince of Monaco’s famed float- 
ing biological laboratory made an 
Intensive stay there. And Amos 
Pinchot, noted sportsman and an- 
gler in his own right, gave the 
islands a whirl. In 1930 Vincent 
Astor’s New York Zoological Ex- 
pedition visited the famous spot. 
i5 Large Islands 
T he GALAPAGOS, belonging to 
Ecuador, lie some 840 miles 
from Panama, and 2,990 from Sanj 
Francisco, in the Pacific near the 
Equator. 
There are 15 large islands and 
40 smaller ones, and they com- 
prise some 3,000 square miles in 
area. They rise to from 3,000 to 
4,000 feet, and some have active 
volcanos from which lava flows 
into the sea. 
Charles Darwin m his voyage i 
In the Beagle said he knew of no 
tropical island so sterile and in-' 
papable of supporting life. There! 
is little rain and on occasions a 
thermometer thrust into the hot 
sand rises to 137 degrees. 
The temperature averages '’2 
degrees but sea water on one side 
of Albemarle Island is 80 degrees 
and on the other 60 degrees. 
Some 30 species of birds live on 
the islands and reptiles of all sorts 
enjoy the heat and &e mud. The 
famous Galapagos tortoises, liz- 
ards and turtles have been much 
publicized , Darwin recounted 
that the tortoises ran to 200 
pounds while the turtles “some 
big old males required 6 and 8 
men to lift them.” 
“I had great sport mounting 
them and riding them although 
it was difficult to maintain my 
seat,” he said. 
Huge Sharks 
S OME years back Zane Grey in 
search of saltwater game fish 
completely rigged out a vessel 
and with his son had a go at the 
sport there. Huge sharks, tuna, 
marlin, swordfish, barracuda, al- 
bacore, and yellowfins abound. 
Grey had great difficulty in 
bringing his catches to the gaff 
or boating them, on account of the 
sharks wl.’ich literally tore them 
to shreds. 
Mako sharks, nmning 1,200 
pounds and more, were caught by 
Grey and members of his party. 
The next fishing exploit of the 
nation’s No. 1 angler is mid- 
August at Clayton, N. Y.. when 
the Thousand Islands Interna- 
tional Bridge is officially opened, 
we are informed. 
There are the famed muskel- 
lunge, fighting fish weighing from 
20 to 80 pounds. Musky fisher- 
men toss aside silk thread and in- 
stead employ 250 feet of copper 
line. The lure is a Skinner spoon, 
manufactured in Clayton, N. Y. 
And if F. D. R. ties into one of 
these, he’ll have a greater battle 
than he’s ever had with a recal- 
citrant Democratic Senator. No 
foolin.’ It’s about the last of the 
glimmering he-man sports — musky 
fishing. 
ROOSEVELT PARTY® 
TURNS NORTHWARD 
President Hooks Number of Tuna 
and Several Large Golden 
Groupers Near Equator. 
By t' e Associated Press. 
ABOARD CRUISER HOUSTON, IN 
GALAPAGOS ARCHIPELAGO, July 
29. — President Roosevelt and his party 
turned northward and expected to 
stop today at Indefatigable Island, 
one of the largest of the Galapagos 
group, lying almost in the center of 
the Archipelago. 
The cruiser Houston anchored yes- 
terday in Gardiners Bay, Hood Island, 
in the extreme southeast corner of 
the Galapagos. 
Mr. Roosevelt hooked and gaffed a 
number of tuna, some of them weigh- 
ing as much as 45 pounds. Later he 
caught several large golden groupers 
and other equatorial fish specimens 
and turned them over to Prof. Waldo 
L. Schmitt of the Smithsonian Insti- 
tute. 
Weather in the islands, cooled by 
the Humboldt current, continued 
pleasant despite the position of the 
Island, a few miles south of the 
Equator. 
By radio, the President was advised 
by Administrator Stewart McDonald 
that the Federal housing business 
continued 100 per cent ahead of July, 
1937. In a report relayed from 
Washington, D. C., the administrator 
said that small home mortgage in- 
surance applications for the week 
ended July 23 totaled more than $20,- 
000,000, more than double the cor- 
responding week of last year. 
Roosevelt’s Lucl<^) 
As Angler F ails 
fp 0'alF 
Aboard Cruiser Houston, In Gala- 
pagos Archipelago, July 29 (/P). — 
For the first time since reaching 
Galapagos Islands. President Roose- 
velt had indifferent luck today in a 
fishing' excursion. 
While the cruiser rode at anchor 
off tiny Seymour Island, a volcanic 
dot near the center of the archi- 
pelago. the Chief Executive spent 
six hours fishing, but he and two 
companions had a total catch of but 
28 fish. 
Scientists from the Houston went 
ashore to seek pink flamingoes on 
Seymour Island but found none. 
