Beebe Fishing

Wireless reports, coming in every few days from mid-Atlantic, keep the world in touch with the progress of the scientific expedition of the New York Zoological Society, under William Beebe, which is adventuring in the Sargasso Sea aboard the wooden steamer Arcturus. Few scientific expeditions, excepting only the Carnarvon progress into the tomb of TutankhAmen, have had so much and such continued publicity during the progress of work.

Beebe reported continuous rough weather. He described taking his first specimens of marine surface-walking insects--a Sargassum fish with fins like hands--and a mass of its eggs which are now hatching in the aquarium of the Arcturus. In spite of the weather, bottom dredging was possible to a depth of three miles. A half-inch cable, containing seven strands of 19 wires each (133 wires in all), was paid out from the drums for three hours, while the steamer drifted in the trough of the swell. The steamer proceeded at about three knots an hour. It then required another three hours to wind the cable back on the drums lifting the dredge alongside the Arcturus. The dredge resembles an oyster dredge with runners on top and bottom. Up from the bottom were brought glass sponges (similar to ordinary sponges but with fine glass skeletons) and volcanic rock. A traveling net was likewise used, attached to the cable at varying depths. This brought up a number of large-mouthed fishes (i.e., mouths huge as compared to bodies), a male pipefish with a brood pouch full of eggs, giant red shrimps, several octopi, fish with eyes on the end of stalks and a rare specimen, believed to be hitherto undescribed--a fish with scales resembling hair or feathers.