There are thirty-eight in the crew and eighteen members of the expedition. Each night and morning the nets are put over, for a surface haul and for a deep one a sounding is taken—a curious lead on a wire, weighted down with an iron weight which forces the sound lead down to the sea bottom and brings up a sample of the bottom, so we can see if it is muddy or rocky or sandy. Each time the weight automatically drops off when the bottom is reached, because the sounding wire isn’t strong enough to pull it up. [[9]]
After the nets are out for an hour they are hauled in and the contents put into tubs of water. Sometimes the whole net has only a pint glass full of tiny, tiny fish which have been brought up from a depth of over a mile or two miles.
On the boat my room mate was Dr. W. K. Gregory of the American Museum of Natural History, who is also Professor of Comparative Anatomy at Columbia. Pretty nice, I think, for a real professor to let a twelve-year-old boy bunk with him! Everyone called him just “Greg” and liked him a lot because he always is so nice and so interested in his work. I think Greg would rather dissect a fish than do almost anything. I know I’d just about rather catch them!
My bunk was right next to where the smokestack went up from the engine room, and the wall was pretty hot. So most of the time, except when it rained, I slept on deck. Really, although we crossed the Equator [[10]]twenty-one times it was not so hot while we were at sea. Lots of times, right on the Equator, it was cool enough to be comfortable wearing a sweater.
[[11]]
WE START ON OUR CRUISE
[[13]]