The Wood's Hole Oceanographic Institution: Sonic Soundings, and an Account of a Winter Cruise to the Somers Islands

Abstract

THE Wood's Hole Oceanographic Institution is an independent organization with its laboratory at Wood's Hole, Massachusetts, where there are also the Marine Biological Laboratory and a branch of the United States Bureau of Fisheries. The first of these has an excellent biological and oceanographical library, and by friendly co-operation this is made freely available to workers in both of the other laboratories. The Oceanographic Institution is the youngest member of the group, for it was founded in 1930 and started work in 193 I under the direction of Professor H. B. Bigelow, the finances coming from the Rockefeller Foundation. The headquarters of the Institution are not the laboratory buildings, but the research vessel Atlantis, built by Messrs. Burmeister and Wain at Copenhagen and taken over in June I931. The Atlantis is a steel, auxiliary, Bermudian-rigged ketch, I42 feet overall, with a maximum draught of 17 feet and a displacement of 460 tons. Her masts are wooden and hollow, the mainmast rising I30 feet from the deck and the mizzenmast about o00 feet. She is double ended, with no bowsprit, and she carries a jib, fore-staysail, mainsail, and mizzen, giving a total of 7200 square feet of canvas. She will sail well within five points of the wind, which is not bad for a vessel of her size and sail area, and built primarily for work; she is stiff enough, steers easily, and her 28o-h.p. Diesel engine will push her along at 8 knots in smooth water. Just abaft the engine-room is the main winch, on whose drum are wound 30,000 feet of '2-inch diameter wire, which has a breaking strain of I2 tons and is still as good as new. This is led from a short boom by the starboard main rigging, and has been used so far for heavy plankton and trawling work, dredging not having yet been attempted. On the starboard side of the mizzenmast is the hydrographic winch, which is used for all light gear, such as watersampling bottles, bottom samplers, small plankton nets, and so on, and also for hoisting the mainsail and the mizzen. On the deck on the port side, amidships, there is a nest of three Nova Scotia dories, so that all work has to be done on the starboard side, where the deck is uninterrupted between the main and mizzen rigging. After the vessel was taken over in Copenhagen, she started on a six weeks' crossing of the Atlantic from Plymouth to Wood's Hole, Massachusetts. After proceeding to a point to the westward of Ireland, the Atlantis sailed due south till she made the Azores, and then worked west and north to her destination. During the whole of this voyage stations were worked for chemical and physical observations on the sea water, samples being taken at many depths down to 2000, and in some cases 3000, metres. These observations can be added to those made by the Michael Sars, the Dana, and other research ships