The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1874-10-15
DEEP SEA SOUNDINGS.
The Apparatus Used in Sounding and
Obtaining Samples Of Ocean Bottom

The Apparatus Used in Sounding and
Obtaining Samples Of Ocean Bottom.
The general interest shown toward all
that is connected with the series of deep
sea soundings in the Pacific, just COM
pleted by Commander Belknap, of the
navy. promts detailed description Of
the machinery used by him 80 success
fully.
The subject of the contour or ''pro-
file'' of ocean beds has long interested
geologists and scientists engaged in the
study of the sea, and when about 1904
passed Midshipman Brooke (afterward
of the Confederate navy invented an
apparatus which brought up in small
quill specimens of the ocean bottom,
scientific men all over the world rushed
to sea and studied the field opened to
them. The apparatus of Brooke has
been variously improved upon by that
gentleman and others, until now Com
mander Belknap has tested its capacity
for sounding at depth of more than
five miles, with the Belknap sounding
cups, invented by himself.
A rod about two feet long has the
lower end cone shaped for two inches,
and in the next eight is shaped exactly
like carpenters large auger; above
this is sliding cup which drops close
over the spiral portion, fitting tightly on
| the shoulder which the point presents.
The cup, during the descent to the bot
tom, is held at the upper part of the rod,
and, being detached, as hereafter shown,
when the bottom is reached, drops down
upon the shoulder and retains along the
spiral all the mud, ooz, sand or gravel
which is collected. An eight-inch
round shot has bored through the cen
| tire hole two and three-quarter inches
in diameter, and has attached net work
of wire, with two handles which termin-
ate in rings. This shot, weighing about
forty-fve pounds, is passed over the
| sounding rod and the rings, hung on a
short arm or trigger, which holds the
shot In position just SO long as the cord
| or wire which connects it, is pendant.
To the ring at the top of the sounding
rod trigger, a rod formed of five or six
strands of wire twisted together, is at
| tached, and to the end of this, connect
ing with the piano wire which is used,
is twenty-five fathoms of albacore line.
These form the whole apparatus at the
bottom, the wire rod and albacore line
| having been found necessary to avoid
| ''l1inking" the wire and thereby incur
ring risk of loss.
THE MACHINE USED IN SOUNDING
| is known as the Thomson Machine, hav-
| ing been invented by Sir William Thorn
son, of London, and Commander Bel
knap's work is the first important work
IN which it has been thoroughly tested,
| the British government declining to
place it on board their own ships. The
material used for lowering and raising
the sounding rod is wire, known as No.
%, piano wire, and weighs but fourteen
pounds to the mile. By using this the
casts are made with greater rapidity and
less room is required than for the old
| fashioned one and half inch and two
inch rope. The Thomson machine con-
sists of drum or wheel thirty inches in
diameter on the edge of which is a V
shaped fange on which the wire is
wound. The drum is mounted on q
platform extending over the ships side,
on the principle of the odometer, which
| shows the number of revolutions made
| by the drum; over desk at one side of
tIlC uIuu luuS d CRU, WHICH,, WuOlI
making cast, is turned once around a
stationary wheel ten inches in diameter,
just in the rear, attached to the dynamom-
eter; this cord, which slips around
the dynamometer wheel, runs thence
thirty feet to a pulley block, which is
connected from an upright port to a
pendant, to which are attached weights
OF various sizes, to control the running
~ IL
the weighted pendant, is used in reeling
in the wire after bottom is reached, and
this. which is four feet in diameter, is
fitted with handles on each side for that
purpose. When the wire is to be reeled
in the cord, or belt, attached from the
drum to the dynamometer is removed,
and another leading to the large wheel
is substituted.