USS Albatross (1882) - Return To Scientific Study

Return To Scientific Study

Following repairs and alterations, Albatross sailed from San Francisco on 23 August 1899, bound by a most circuitous route for the Far East. Over the next few months, again with Alexander Agassiz embarked, she ranged into the South and Central Pacific, visiting the Marquesas, Paumotu, Society Islands, Cook Islands, Tonga, Fiji, Ellice, Gilbert, Marshall Islands, Caroline Islands and the Ladrone Islands. During the course of this cruise over a vast ocean basin, which Alexander Agassiz named "Moser Deep" in honor of Albatross' captain, her distinguished passenger made thousands of dredgings, and soundings of the sea yielded siliceous sponges from 4,173 fathoms. During this voyage Harry Clifford Fassett, captain's clerk and photographer, recorded people, communities and scenes during this voyage using a glass-plate camera.

After disembarking Agassiz upon arrival at Yokohama, Japan, on 4 March 1900, Albatross operated out of that port into June. During this period, from 4 to 8 May, she conducted several short dredging trips for the benefit of a party of students from the Tokyo Imperial University. Ultimately departing Yokohama on 2 June, the ship visited Hakodate, Japan, and Kamchatka, north of the Aleutian Islands, and collected biological specimens in the North Pacific. That summer, she ranged into the Bering Sea, and ultimately returned to San Francisco on 30 October 1900 after a cruise of 14 months.

The following year, 1901, Albatross continued her work in the salmon fisheries of southeast Alaskan waters, departing San Francisco for that region on 23 April. During her homeward voyage in September and October, she investigated the waters off the Pacific Northwest and California to determine their suitability for the introduction of eastern lobsters and crab, and to study the movements of salmon at sea.

A little over a month later, the steamer sailed for the Farallons on 5 December and, the following morning, planted a shipment of eastern lobster and tautog, received by rail from the east coast, in the waters off those islands. After returning to San Francisco the same day, she operated from that port from 20 December 1897 to 6 April 1898, as she served as a base for a survey of the San Diego County fisheries. On 27 March 1898, her crewmen rescued a man whose rowboat had overturned some 400 yards astern of where the ship lay at anchor.

On 11 March 1902, the steamer sailed for Hawaii, and over the ensuing months, investigated the fish and other aquatic resources of the Hawaiian Islands, ultimately returning to San Francisco on 1 September. The following spring, the ship embarked members of the special commission appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt to investigate the conditions and needs of the Alaskan salmon fisheries, with an eye towards conserving this important resource, and transported them to the waters of the Pacific northwest and of Alaska. During the course of the cruise, Albatross enabled the members of the commission to visit "numerous salmon streams, canneries, and salteries" in Alaska. She returned to her home port on 24 September 1903.

Early in 1904, Albatross operated locally between San Francisco and San Diego, working jointly with Stanford University and the University of California, in a study of the marine biology and fishery resources in the waters of Monterey Bay and south of Point Conception. The ship did not conduct another expedition until the autumn of 1904, when she sailed from San Francisco on 6 October for Panama.

With Professor Agassiz again embarked, Albatross cruised the tropical waters of the eastern Pacific, visiting the Galapagos Islands; Callao, Peru; the Easter and Gambier Islands before she disembarked the distinguished zoologist on 24 February 1905 at Acapulco. Albatross then returned to San Francisco, arriving on 5 April 1905. During this voyage, Agassiz had used Albatross as the base for his study of the Humboldt Current, the most extensive explorations made in those waters up to that time.

Later that spring, the research vessel departed San Francisco on 18 May, bound for Alaskan waters, and, over the next several months installed a salmon hatchery at Yes Bay and, later, carried out several plankton tows in the waters between Puget Sound and Wrangell Island. She returned to San Francisco on 16 November 1905.

As the ship was preparing for her next cruise, a violent earthquake shook San Francisco on 18 April 1906, and a disastrous fire ensued. Albatross assisted greatly in the relief efforts. Underway on 3 May, the ship sailed for the familiar climes of the Aleutians, and, during the cruise, ranged as far as the Commander Islands (Komandorskis) and the Sea of Okhotsk, and even visited the coasts of Japan and Korea. She investigated the salmon fisheries, the distribution of the various types of fish which inhabited the waters she traversed, and conducted scientific explorations of the northern Pacific Ocean. Tragically, on the return leg of the voyage, her captain, Lt. Comdr. LeRoy M. Garrett, was washed overboard in rough seas on 21 November 1906. The ship, under the command of Lt. (later Admiral) Arthur J. Hepburn ultimately reached San Francisco on 10 December 1906.