THE IMPENETRABLE SEA 



yachtsmen to recover their anchors; or perhaps assist 

 technicians in laying electric cable across a river, with 

 swift currents running, struggling with difficult tasks 

 sixty or eighty feet below the surface. 



Sunken vessels have provided sanctuary for countless 

 myriads of fish since the first primitive ships made by 

 man contributed some of their number, wrecked by gales 

 or shattered on submerged reefs, to the treasures that 

 rest on the world's sea-beds. For a number of centuries 

 all kinds of sea creatures, lurking among the submerged 

 wrecks, have been undisturbed by man. Thousands of 

 sunken ships now rest on the ocean floors, their cabins 

 and holds and state-rooms peopled by swimming, crawl- 

 ing and encrusting creatures. They hide in the nooks 

 and corners of the wrecks, and feed on the corals and 

 other marine growths that lie around or press upon the 

 decaying hulks. 



The fishmen are now evicting the fishes — sending them 

 scuttling and writhing from the submerged decks, as they 

 regain control of the ships and send up parts of them, 

 and their cargoes, to the surface. Diving into the har- 

 bours and shore-waters of many countries, the fishmen 

 go down, reclaiming mankind's lost property. 



The divers are using electric scooters in some places 

 to make explorations of sunken reefs. Huge sea-turtles 

 turn aside as the scooters travel at three or four miles 

 an hour through an element eight hundred times as 

 dense and heavy as air. The electric scooters are bullet- 

 shaped and can haul divers over considerable distances 

 so that they experience little fatigue. What scenes they 

 must see ! The sea-beds of the shore-waters are seldom 

 still — creatures burrow into them or break out of them : 

 sometimes there are a number of upheavals in a limited 

 area, like the eruptions of small volcanoes. 



Plant-like animals cover the sunken rocks. Wrasse, 

 groupers and squirrel-fish lurk under the coral. Tiny fish 

 — red, yellow, green, blue and black — are everywhere 



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