Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/23

Rh diameter, were placed close together. The great mass of old birds remained by their nests until cameras could be brought into play at a distance of fifteen or twenty yards. On being approached closer they shuffled off, not taking wing until more closely pressed, leaving the well-grown young behind. The latter had not developed the white breasts of the adults and were quite fearless. Another species of cormorant lacking the white breast, had nests along the low cliffs, while eggs and young of gulls were abundant on some elevations near the water.

Our explorations were not confined to the shores; when the ship was under way, the large dredge, or beam trawl, was often lowered to drag on the bottom, once as deep as 370 fathoms. It was, in fact, dragged systematically through the inland passages of the straits and Smythe Channel from Cape Virgins on the Atlantic to Port Otway on the Pacific. This big iron-framed net, hauled by steam power, brought up fishes, shells, crustaceans, sea urchins, starfishes and many other sea forms whose scientific names are here somewhat out of place.

Among the fishes we often got Macrurus, that strange, big-eyed, long-tailed genus distributed nearly everywhere over the ocean floor. Crustaceans were better represented in the dredge hauls, many deep sea types being brought up. Mollusks were plentiful in number and variety, living brachiopods—the "lamp shells" so well known as fossils—appearing frequently.

There were many specimens of small octopus and a couple of burly squids nearly six feet long. The deep-water species were, as a whole, new to science.

This whole region is an anciently depressed, sea-engulfed mass of mountains among which the voyager of the present carefully gropes his way.

The navigation of the straits is confined to daylight work and the summer days are of course long, but even then heavy fogs have to be reckoned on. The short nights were always passed at anchor. While the straits are several miles wide in places, there are dangerous narrows which can only be passed at slack water. English Narrows are less than a quarter of a mile wide and the channel affords room for but one ship at a time.

The only settlement worthy of mention here is Punta Arenas, the most southerly town on the globe. The region is too far south for agriculture, but garden vegetables can be grown in sheltered places. There is some gold digging carried on, but sheep raising has become an established industry. There was much in the climate to remind me of the Aleutian Islands, which lie nearly in the same latitude in the north.

Our observations of water temperature in the straits varied from 47° to 57° Fahrenheit, the higher temperature being found in the