Omaha daily bee., 1906-08-12

and the Bering sea II brought up animal
life from Alb fathoms near Tonga islands
in the South Pacific, and in Bering sea in
In fathoms IL captured 800 fishes In a
single haul OF a beam trawl. towed by a
wire rope and operated by an engine on
deck. 1t has made more than 1000 sound
ings and several thousand dredge hauls.
From the great depths the dredse brings
up no vegetable life, as It cannot exist in
the cold and sunless valleys. All the ami
mails away down are carnivorous. Some are
blind and find subsistence by abnormally
developed feelers The deeper its home
the smaller are the eyes of the FISH, but
the larger it's jaws The organs most
necessary to its existence are the best de-
veloped. No really big fish has been brought
up from a depth Of two miles or more.
Such hsh-even up to the giant sea serpent
forms-may exist, but the present dredges
are incapable OF capturing creatures more
than about FIVE feet in length.
To obtain the temperature and the specific
gravity Of the water at the sea floor a
! self-registering thermometer and n water
specimen cup are sent down with the sinkor.
| The water cup closes automatically after
II is started on the return trip to the sur
closed in a brass tube and protected from
| the enormous water pressure.
! Immediately after the sounding rod is
released from the sinker the thermometer.
| which is pivoted in the case, turns bulb UP.
! The temperature at the turn is registered
| by the breaking OF the column OF mercury
at a bend near the bulb. No more mercury
! can get into the bulb until the thermometer
| is reversed again and the officer at the
| sounding machine on deck attends to this
after he reads the thermometer.
The Albatross has two Laboratories and
a staff of naturalists who analyEe, preserve
| and classify all specimens. Much care
must be taken In the handling of deep sea
fishes. as they will go to pieces at a touch
sometimes Microscopic analysis Is made
of all bottom specimens brought up In the
sounding roc BY this means the exact
nature of the bottom at every depth has
been discovered. Much of the surface bot
tom is made UP Of animaculae, that dying
on the surface, have dropped down, forming
ooze and becoming the food Of the creatures
below.
Mud ut the Bottom.
The covering OF the extreme bed consists
Of what the explorers call red clay. 1t is
smooth, sticky mud, varying in color
up mostly of hydrated. aluminium debris,
remains of calcerous organisms mineral
| fragments of volcanic origin, sponge and
| skeletons OF radolar1a. The scientists, with
characteristic simplicity of speech, describe
radiolaria as "a class OF gymnomyxan pro-
| tozoans with the protoplasmic body emit
ting radiate f1lamentous pesudopodia and
mostly enclosing spherical OF conform
| perforated she'll" About 2.50o fathoms down
! the bottom consists of globiberina ooze.
which is q soft mud filled with the shells
OF this minute sea animal; diatom ooze. a
mud surcharged with the remains Of dia-
toms, resembling little pill boxes.
In the deep water bordering continental
land the sounding rod brings up blue mud,
which is matter carried out into the sea
by the rivers and other currents The
great depths never have been photo
| graphed because of the darkness and the
vast pressure. but cameras have been
used successfully in a few hundred fathoms,
where marine life is pretty much what, 1t
is at the surface. In the neighborhood
of volcanic islands the sea bottom is COW
cred with minerals of volcanic origin.
II requires the careful attention of six
men to operate the Sigsbee sounding ma
| chine. Four attend to the purely me-
chanical work, such as guiding the wire on
| the reel, oilng the wire, running the reel
! Ing engine and attaching and detaching the
| thermometer and specimen water cup. One
| officer, who stands aft, has general charge
and another, called the recorder, reads
! the thermometer. does all the figuring on
| speed, depth, time, etc, and takes charge
| of the specimens. Great patience is nee
essary in deep sea sounding and dredg-
ing. Nothing can be done quickly. It
took the Albatross ten hours to complete
her deepest haul with her big beam
trawl when she brought up great guam
titles OF squid, devil hsh and starfish.
The simplest and quickest method OF
getting bottom creatures that cannot be
secured with the dredges is by use of the
''tangles," mop-like sweeper. 1t can be
lowered rapidly 1t enmeshes starflshes, sea
urchins, crinouds, corals and occasionally
! fish of some size.
The Prince OF Monaco has the distinc-
ton of accomplishing more results as a
deep sea investigator than any other in
dividual oceanagrapher. He has yachts
especially equipped With apparatus quite
as good as that used on the Albatross.
He has spent many years Improving ap-
pliances and is the inventor Of trap that
has taken fish from depth Of two miles.
| He recently founded In Paris an ocean
osraphic institute to which he presented
his famous oceanographic Museum of Mo-
naco including laboratories, collections
and aquarians, for the support OF which
he ras provided a fund Of nearly a mil
lion dollars. The institute will be built
on land which the University OF Paris and
the prince Jointly have acquired 1t is
provided in the gift that the work Of the
institute shall be under the control Of an
International committee, the membership
Of which shall be open to noted oceano-
graphers Of any country. The value OF
the gift is said TO exceed $4,000. .0oO-New
| York Sun.