"Carnegie" Completes Her First Cruise

The Department's new research vessel "Carnegie" returned to Brooklyn in February, 1910 after her first cruise -- a voyage of 8,000 miles spanning six months. Ports of call included St. John's, Newfoundland; Falmouth, England; Madeira; and Bermuda. Precise geomagnetic measurements were made throughout. The expense lavished on the unique non-magnetic construction of the yacht and the "perfection reached in [her] instruments" was quickly justified. Even in seas as comparatively well-travelled as the North Atlantic, "Carnegie" demonstrated magnetic declination errors as great as 2.5 degrees in existing mariners' compass charts. After spending four months in dry-dock for alterations and additions, the survey vessel departed in June, 1910 on her second, considerably more ambitious mission: a three-year circumnavigation of the globe.