University of Iowa - Hawkeye Yearbook (Iowa City, IA)

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modest sums for which they offered to transport a passenger to the dock; but since we did not care to ride in such high priced conveyances, the ship ' s boats were lowered and we went ashore in them. Our first care was to get the mail which had accumulated here for us, and a great task it was. The Havana post office is a dark little establishment where letters are piled up on a table and left until called for; and, as a matter of fact, many are lost or delayed. No stamps were sold in the post office but an official very kindly directed us to a little dingy tailor shop near by, where they could be obtained. Parts of the city, especially those along the water front, are crowded and dirty in the extreme; the streets are narrow and filled with filth; the sidewalks of such little width that two persons cannot pass each other on them, and the whole vicinity has a peculiarly repulsive appearance. The newer portion of the city is vastly different, however, the streets being well paved and cared for, the residences farther apart, and as a rule imposing in architecture, and there are parks full of beautiful foliage and blooming plants. Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday were enjoyably passed in visiting the various points of interest in this old-fashioned Spanish town; the cathedral where Columbus lies buried is here, but the tomb itself was closed at the time and the party could not enter. Wednesday ing a tug towed us out of the harbor. On leaving Havana we sailed a few miles from Morro Castle, and here made our first cast for Crinoids in water from one hundred to three hundred fathoms deep. Since this was really the first of the deep sea dredging, it may here be appropriate to give some tion of the apparatus, by means of which we were able to bring from the sea-bottom samples of almost every form of life found there. The tangle consisted of a bar of steel about one inch in diameter and some five feet long, bent at the middle so as to form a very obtuse angle, and five strong chains depending rately from the bar at regular vals. Into the alternate links of each of these chains were tied strands of Italian hemp rope some six feet long, with their ends frayed out. It is difficult to give the reader an quate idea of the bushy, horse-tail appearance which one of these gles, thus constructed, presents, when ready to be cast into the water 17

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acquaintance of the light keeper and his son, who are the only inhabitants of the island. They lead a lonely life, indeed, and their only knowledge of the outside world comes from the few vessels which put in there for fruit or anchorage. We found them very hospitable and ready to place anything which they had at our disposal; and it was in their cocoa grove that we first had an opportunity to eat cocoa-nuts fresh from the trees. The next day, Sunday, the pilot brought the schooner out of the harbor, and after trying to sell some shell work, straw hats, and other wares left us; we set sail across the great Bahama banks for Havana. Here in the shallow water of the Banks, we determined to try the dredging apparatus and, accordingly, the tangle bar was lowered into the sea. When it was hauled up the variety of excellent specimens obtained showed that it was worth while to dredge here in earnest, and the tain advised the use of his favorite apparatus, the big oyster dredge. This proved to be all that the captain claimed. It scraped up everything in its path and the monster fish that it brought to the surface made some of the party fairly dance with excitement. Three days were spent in dredging here, in water from five to twenty-four fathoms deep. Then, after a two days ' calm, Water Cay was sighted. Lured by the name a party went ashore with barrels to replenish the supply of fresh water, which was running low.7No trace of good water, however, could be found; but the ornithologists had plenty of work to do among the rookeries of bridled and noddy terns, which are very abundant on all the small islands of the south. Cuba was sighted the next morning, the great Peak of Matanzas rising high above the level shore line. We coasted along toward the west all day, till at four o ' clock in the afternoon the city of Havana appeared in the distance. The harbor was entered in a driving rain storm; the health officer came aboard, and we were directed where to anchor. Hardly had we cast our anchor before a per- feet swarm of bungalows came out to take us ashore. Two, three, and four dollars were the 16

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for the first time, and far more difficult is it to give a proper conception of the faculty this mass of hemp fibres possesses for gathering up and holding fast whatever comes in its path along the sea-bottom. The windlass, by which the tangle was lowered and hoisted, consisted of an iron drum fifteen inches in diameter and thirty inches long, hung horizontally across the mid-deck of the schooner, in an iron frame firmly bolted to the deck. Large iron cranks were attached at each end of the windlass, and by applying themselves vigorously to these cranks, from one to four persons were enabled to hoist the tangle up from the sea-bottom onto the deck. This was our dredging outfit, and although we (lid occasionally attach the oyster dredge or one of the smaller Blake dredges to the cable, we always returned to our tangle for the best results. As we sailed away from Castle Morro that beautiful morning, we all hoped that before we left the crinoid fields we should secure a few specimens of the beautiful pentacrinus ; but in the very first cast of the tangle we obtained more of these than we had hoped to get by weeks of hard labor. The ing lead cast overboard had had the customary bit of soap on its lower end, and when it was hauled in from a depth of one hundred and twenty fathoms a pentacrinus plate was found embedded in the soap. Captain Flowers had taken the bearings of the vessel when the lead touched bottom and so was able to return to that exact spot for the first cast of the tangle. The five specimens (many of them superb ones) which clung to the tangle as it emerged from the water was proof sufficient of the presence there, in ance, of the very forms we sought. For the balance of that week we remained above the crinoid fields and worked our apparatus as rapidly as our strength would permit, with varying success. It required about ten minutes for the cable to run out after dropping the tangle overboard, and we usually dragged the bottom for thirty or forty-five minutes. The time required for hoisting varied, according to whether or not the tangle caught on the rocky bottom over which we sometimes passed. Whenever the dredge did hang firmly to some projecting rock the vessel would surge and tug at the cable until it would seem that the fastenings must certainly give way. Then, with all the power we could exert upon the cranks, we would manage slowly to pull the schooner up to a position immediately over the dredge and by applying our force directly from above we were always able to break the tangle loose, though generally not until it was so bent and twisted that it had to be ally made over before it could be used. Under such circumstances as these the hoisting sometimes required several hours; but, as a rule, each hoist was made in about forty-five minutes, so that by rising early in the morning and making one haul before breakfast we usually accomplished from four to six hauls each day. Sometimes several dozen fine specimens would result from a single haul and at other times, again, there would be nothing save a few common sea-weeds. In one instance after winding long and hard for nearly 18 1