Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo18amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
Narrative of a Bird Quest in the Vicinity
of Cape Horn¹

By ROLLO H. BECK

ON THE twenty-eight of De-
cember 1914. we hoisted an-
chor at five thirty o'clock in
the morning and started south from
Hermte Islind for the Horn. Before
an hour had passed fog was pouring
over Hermite Island, and the wind in-
creased to a strong breeze. We headed
in behind Jerdin Island and dropped
anchor once more. The wind died
down in the evening, and on the twenty-
ninth we turned out again at five
o'clock and got under way. A light
northeast wind carried us down to
Horn Island, and we rounded the Horn
in flying style as the wind freshenedon
nearing the cape. Being in a small
boat and the wind off shore, we passed
close along the southern side of the
island, taking photographs of the cape
from different angles and, although at
times sailing with the rail under water
in the sudden fierce gusts that swooped
down off the high cliffs of
the promontory, we en-
joyed to the full
this pleasant passage of the
Horn—a trip I had many
years longed to make.
Shearwaters and alba-
trosses swung high and
low around us, and the
rapacious skuas hurried
from one flock of fishing
birds to another in search
of food, while the timber-
strewn beach reminded us
that the stories of wrecks
credited to this point were
not all fables.
We sailed to the south-
ward about ten miles, but
the breeze freshening, we
turned back, and by the time Herschel
Island was gained a heavy wind hur-
ried us up the South Soa Pass to an
anchorage at the southornniost point of
Wollaston Island. We were held at
Wollaston Island a week by prolonged
gales, but found much of interest
there, discovering and photographing
sooty shearwaters' nests being the most
important work. Near the top of a
rocky ridge I found my first nest of
this shearwater, and glancing up as I
reached it, saw Cape Horn looming
over Herschel Island just below me.
When I thought of the thousands of
sooty shearwaters I had seen about
the islands of southern Alaska, and the
hundreds of thousands in Monterey
Bay, California, it seemed as if I had
made a long journey before I finally
laid my hands on my first nest within
sight of Cape Horn. For ferocity in
nesting birds I have vet to see the
Text Appearing After Image:


When making long vovages the sextant is one of the instru-
ments used by the navigator to determine his position. The
above scene suggests to the initiated that eight bells soon
will be struck and the man at the wheel relieved

¹ Conclusion of article begun in the January Journal. Article and illustrations copyrighted.
1918, by RoUo H. Beck
111

Note About Images