by Dean C. Allard
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Figure
2 - A. The fisheries and oceanographic research steamer
ALABATROSS. B. The 25-foot Herreshoff steam gig. C. The
26.5 foot Herreshoff steam cutter. The ALBATROSS also
carried a 28-foot seine boat; a 26-foot whale boat; and
an 18-foot, 2-inch dinghy.
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another scientific target of the Fish Commission. Baird’s
new interests reflected the growing conviction by European and
American scientists that the deep oceans contained an abundance
of life.
Contributing to this belief was the material gathered during the
round-the-world cruise of the British HMS Challenger
in 1872–76.
During 1877–79, Alexander Agassiz made two cruises to the
Caribbean and in 1880 one to Mid Atlantic and New England waters
in the U.S. Coast Survey steamer Blake. Agassiz (1888)
returned with valuable collections, some from as deep as 2,400
fathoms. During the same period, the Speedwell, a U.S.
Naval ship assigned to Baird’s Fish Commission, and the
Fish Hawk (Fig. 4), a Commission hatchery vessel that
could dredge in mid-depth waters, took rich hauls in the northwest
Atlantic.
The excitement created by the fauna collected in 1877 from 144
fathoms by the Speedwell, at a point about 40 miles east
of Cape Ann, Mass., was suggested by one of Baird’s principal
scientific assistants, George Brown Goode (Fig. 5). Goode exclaimed
that “it seems incredible that American naturalists should
not then have known that a few miles away there was a fauna as
unlike that of our coast as could be found in the Indian Ocean
or the seas of China(2).”
Addison E. Verrill (Fig. 6), the Fish Commission’s senior
scientist, was equally impressed by the Fish Hawk’s
collecting activity in 1880 in waters 100–500 fathoms deep
and about 100 miles off Martha’s Vineyard and Block Island.
Verrill (1884:391) asserted that this area was “the richest
and most remarkable ground ever discovered on our coast.”
In 1881–82, Spencer Baird continued to use the Fish
Hawk to dredge in waters as deep as 780 fathoms, primarily
along the Gulf Stream Slope (Smith, 1888:915–932; Linton,
1915:741–744). But as soon as the Fish Hawk’s
initial deep-sea work was completed in the fall of 1880, Baird
decided to seek a far more capable research vessel. By December
1880 the Fish Commissioner could share his plans with Addison
Verrill. Baird told his chief scientist that his new ship would
have excellent
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