ALMOST ISLAND 



caused by minute particles of water; while beneath 

 the surface fog is a result of small particles of land. 

 I have visited my island when I could not see more 

 than a yard away — the water was merely diluted 

 sand. A distant gale had sent in great swells which 

 reached down, down, and ploughed the sand into 

 deep transverse furrows, while the suspended grains 

 flicked against the glass of my helmet like atoms 

 made visible. To see the reef or a great fish loom up 

 through this pale-blue fog is a sight to be forever 

 remembered. In a heavy swell the water is often 

 filled with fronds and strands of seaweed, torn off 

 by the surge near the surface, and now, like beauti- 

 ful autumn leaves, eddying back and forth — bits 

 of wine-colored lace, or long fronds shimmering in 

 the diluted sunlight with exquisite opalescence. 



Under-sea wind is once removed from wind over- 

 head, since it is the motion of water caused in turn 

 by the motion of air. I never realized how absolutely 

 still water could be until I looked out from my 

 Bathysphere into the blue quiet a quarter mile down. 

 In that place there was no such thing actually as 

 plankton, for no matter how slight a power of 

 movement any creature might have, yet even if 

 it shot about only in circles, the movement and di- 

 rection were its own. 



On my island in a heavy wind-swell, all of us, 

 the fish and myself, became very nearly plankton, 

 being pushed forward and withdrawn at the will of 

 the water. Six fathoms down day and night are 

 unlike those on land — the former being much 



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