Late in April, therefore, the long, glistening steel submarine swept down the Thames and out to the open sea, with the members of the expedition and two or three of its naval crew grouped on its low-railed deck. At the last moment the expedition's limited personnel had been limited still further by the loss of Ernest Stevens, the young biology instructor who was to have been of it. Young Stevens, on the day before that of sailing, had had the misfortune to twist his ankle badly as he ran down the steps of one of the university buildings, and as the crowded submarine was obviously no place for a disabled man, he was forced to watch it sail without him, contenting himself, during the following days, by following the expedition's progress through the radio reports received from it by the university station. * * * * * For the first few days, while the _K-16_ crept out of the English Channel and into the broad Atlantic, the messages from it were for the main part but routine reports of progress. The submarine was following a northwestern course toward the upper boundary of the Nelsen Deeps, and would, Clinton reported, begin its surveys at once upon reaching that objective. For several days thereafter the _K-16's_ messages to the university station at London gave only its position and progress, and it was not until May 5th that a brief report from the submarine stated that it had reached the desired latitude and was now forging slowly southward on the surface, the expedition's members already busy with their trawls and deck-winches. For the next three days the messages from the _K-16_ were reports of the work accomplished with the trawls. In those days, so Clinton reported, no less than a dozen new forms had already been brought up and classified. An entirely new species of the _Modiola vulgaris_ was, he stated, probably the most important of their finds so far, but besides this a half-dozen variations of common malacopterygii and acanthopterygii forms had been obtained and examined. The submarine, Clinton added, was still forging south, working all her trawls, and as yet no descents had been attempted.