The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1858-11-11
An Interesting Expedition.

The schooner Kenmore Cooper, which arriv-
ed on Tuesday, left San Francisco on the Goth
September, having been sent out by order of the
United States Navy Department, to survey the
route to China from San Francisco. Her officers
are Lieut.. Commanding John NJ. Brooke, Lieut..
Charles E. Thorburn, and Mr.. Kern, d~raughts-
man. Lieut.. Brooke will be remembered by our
readers as the inventor of the deep-sea sounding
apparatus, through the means of which the tele-
graph plateau across the Atlantic was mapped
out by Lieut.. Maury, a knowledge of which has
led to the successful laying of the Atlantic % tele-
graph. Lieut.. Thorburn was a member of the
commission which surveyed the overland route
between San Antonio and San Diego in which
he acquired a high reputation as a scientific Off
Ger. Mr.. Kern accompanied Fremont in his eel
ebrated journey to California over the Rocky
Mountains, in which the party suffered 50 much.
Kern River was discovered by this gentleman,
and subsequently received his name.
The object of the present expedition is to prove
or disprove the dangers which have for years been
represented on the charts as existing on the route
between San Francisco and China. with a view to
the establishment, at no distant day, of a line of
steamers to the az farthest west, - from the present
y emporium u -ALut itstii ILL lhNol-
nection with that stupendous undertaking, the
Pacific Railroad, the accomplishment of which
the people of the United States are now deter
mined upon. 1t is proposed by this expedition to
examine carefully the track throughout, not only
for one terminus, but through the Ladrone ISL
ands and among the islands TO the southwark of
Japan. Tn Fsninore Cooper has examined the
reputed dangers-islands and shoals-on the
route between San Francisco and Honolulu, and
finds that none of them exist. The great depth
of water in the vicinity where shoals have
been reported precludes the possibility of their
existence. The spot represented on the charts as
Cooper's Island was repeatedly sailed over, and
each sounding gave three mules depth of water
We may here mention that Lieut.. Brooke is fur
nished with serenteen e~hrononeters, by well-known
makers, and he not only rates them in the ordi-
nary manner, but, in accordance with a plan
which we believe he was the first to put in prac-
tice, the effect of a change of temperature is
strictly marked upon each of these seventeen in
struments- This, we are told, amounts to as
much as a difference in the rate of two seconds or
more according to the difference of temperature,
which every navigator knows must render this an
important subject of scientific inquiry.
Lieut.. Brooke, as we before remarked, made a
number of deepsea soundings on the way from
San Francisco to Honolulu, not only in the usual
and ~straightest route, but often going far out of
his way to examine the fabulous shoals and isl
ands referred to, and the least water found was
two miles in depth. This, Lieut.. Brooke thinks,
is an elevation or submarine ridge of mountains,
about midway between these islands and the Coast.
The deposit brought up by the sounding tube was
Of q dark earth-color, and when examined through
q microscope, proved to be composed of innumer-
able fnfnsorsa, or microscopic animals. To the
naked eye it resembles the mud deposited by an
overflow Of . river.
The apparatus for sounding (Which is one of
the most ingenious contrivances, and yet quite
simple to the comprehension when explained) not
only brings up q specimen Of the substance of
which the bottom is composed, but there is Sound
in the .op Of the tube some of the water ~ sh,
stagnaut and waveless, for one hundrea lathoms
from the bottom of the Pacific, protects those
minute creatures from the influence of the upper
currents and storms. Mans inquisitiye search
has at length found out their abode. and they