The Swedish Deep-Sea Expedition

Abstract

AN account has already been given of the first part of the cruise of the Albatross (see Nature, October 25, 1947, p. 559). On August 27, 1947, the Albatross started from Balboa on its cruise across the Pacific Ocean, and five months later terminated it in the idyllic harbour of Ternate, visited by the Challenger Expedition seventy-three years earlier. The course led first to the Galapagos Islands, where the upwelling cold water and the deposits beneath it were studied ; then along a west-north-west direction until the eighteenth parallel was reached, from there turning south for Nukuhiva and for Tahiti. Between Tapeete and Honolulu the course of the Challenger was followed, although to the opposite direction, several of its stations being repeated under way. From Honolulu the course lay to the south-southwest and, after crossing the equator for a fourth time, we steered west-north-west, finally reaching the great deeps south-east of Mindanao.