Beebe

Having broken through the heavy static at the equator after a fortnight of reported failure (TIME, Apr. 20), Explorer William Beebe, last week, employed his radio to tell the U. S. his oceanographic adventures in the South Pacific Ocean. Cruising south from Panama to study the chilly Humboldt Current off the coast of Ecuador (TIME, Apr. 13), thence west to the Galapagos Islands (on the Equator, longitude 92DEG west), those on board the Arcturus had beheld:

P: A gigantic tide rip, scores of miles long, where the El Nino (southbound) (TIME, Apr. 13) met the Humboldt Current (northbound).

P: Great numbers of whales and porpoises wallowing in the foaming brine of this rip.

P: Eggs of the halobate, the only seagoing insect in the world, a long-legged ocean pedestrian similar to the fresh-water skipper or water spiders. These eggs, hitherto undiscovered, were found on the floating feathers of gannets (species of pelican).

P: Square miles of water, colored purple by hosts of jellyfish; hundreds of paper nautili, attached to one another in long strings; transparent flounders with lacy fins; deep-sea mackerel flashing blue and yellow lights.

P: One night--while they were experimenting with a diving helmet outside of Darwin Bay, Tower Island--a weird glare on the horizon. Steaming in that direction at once, the Arcturus came to Albermarle Island, largest in the Galapagos group, where two volcanic peaks were flaming with "fiery cascades of lava ... an unforgettably magnificent spectacle." The photographers on the Arcturus acted. Beebe and a companion, John Tee Van, attempted to approach one of the craters on foot, were driven back by poisonous gases. Forthwith Beebe dubbed the craters Mounts Williams and Whiton, after patrons of the expedition.

At sea, conditions for oceanographic work were "almost miraculous"; deep sea fish had been forced to the surface by the enormous disturbance.