234 
PACIFIC SCIENCE, Vol. II, October, 1948 
FIG. 3. The deep-sea winch aboard the "Albatross.” Only the power drums are shown in the 
photograph; the 8,000 meters of steel cable are stored on a third great spool which is not shown. 
including 12 apprentices between 17 and 21 
years of age. 
Since our sounding gear is very heavy (ap¬ 
proximately 1,500 kilograms), and is carried 
by a steel-wire cable 8,000 meters in length, a 
very powerful electric winch capable of raising 
and lowering a load of over 10 metric tons at a 
maximum speed of 100 meters a minute was 
specially built for the cruise. In order to work 
such heavy gear undisturbed by wind waves 
and ocean swell, the route to be followed was 
chosen so as to fall mainly within or near the 
region of equatorial calms where, fortunately, 
the sea bottom offers problems of special inter¬ 
est. Our original plan was to begin with a 
tour of the north Atlantic Ocean down to the 
equator. Because of unavoidable delay in start¬ 
ing, postponed from the beginning of March 
to the beginning of July, and the necessity of 
avoiding the hurricane season in the West 
Indies and the southwest monsoon in the west¬ 
ern Indian Ocean, it was necessary to take a 
short cut from Madeira to Martinique and from 
there to Cristobal, where we arrived on August 
19. After necessary readjustments had been 
carried out on our deep-sea winch, in which 
we were most generously assisted by the Naval 
Command of the Canal Zone, we passed through 
the Panama Canal on August 26, and on the 
following day we left Balboa on a WSW course. 
IN THE ATLANTIC 
On our way across the Atlantic we had op¬ 
portunities for testing our gear. Between Ma¬ 
deira and Cristobal eight cores varying in 
length from 10 to 15 meters were obtained. 
Most of them consisted of typical red clay, 
which in the lower levels was considerably 
tougher than in the upper layers. The greatest 
depth from which a core was raised was nearly 
6,000 meters. As long as we had very calm 
weather or were running before a moderate sea 
and swell our deep-sea echo sounder, specially 
constructed for the cruise by the Marine In¬ 
struments of London, gave legible records down 
to 6,000 meters. The record often became 
