IVONSUCH 



halfway, swung around and found myself clear off 

 in cosmic space. There was no sign of reef below or 

 boat or surface overhead; I was too close to the 

 ladder to see them, so I was apparently suspended in 

 mid-ether ; a cloud shut out the sun for the moment 

 and the dusk was eery — unlike any earthly twi- 

 light. The fog-blue spaces swirled past ; I could ac- 

 tually see thinner and denser areas, probably the 

 shift of light from the face of the wave mirrors high 

 overhead. I swivelled half a circle and entered a 

 galaxy — a whole constellation of great jellyfish. 

 Aurelias they were, sun- jellies, but a much more 

 appropriate term would be Lunelias, for they were 

 grey and misty. Two and thirty of these active 

 moons, all more than a foot across, throbbed around 

 me, set at all angles, each with a quartet of bright 

 pink loops at its center — egg-masses, insurance 

 of future generations of sun- jellies. One bumped 

 against the glass of my helmet, and before it could 

 regain equilibrium I reached out and held it bal- 

 anced. Two or three tiny fish dashed away, and in 

 its watery tissues I could see small crustaceans, em- 

 bedded like flies in amber — parasites in a living 

 film of water. The delicate fringe of tentacles waved 

 about my face more gracefully than cobwebs could 

 in air. There came to me a profound feeling of the 

 permanence of the evanescent; these one-half of 

 one per cent of life filling the ocean with their 

 myriads, with adequate provision for the future — 

 each jelly perfect; and I knew that the first news- 

 paper I would open on my return would be an al- 



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