THE FIRST DIVERS 2/ 



most excellent swimming and diving instructors in seals 

 and various diving birds, such as grebes, terns, and ducks. 

 In one way they were superior to most of their descendants 

 who used artificial diving aids, for they had the prag- 

 matic courage of their convictions, while the majority of 

 their successors were content to invent something and 

 then sit about hoping someone else would come along and 

 try it out. 



It is diflScult to get even an approximate idea of the first 

 serious efforts at diving. We might take the earliest men- 

 tion of pearls as an index except that the more primitive 

 peoples did not value pearls for ornaments as much as 

 they did more brilliant, lusty stones. The oysters were 

 doubtless used as food for many centuries before the pearls 

 were esteemed as anything besides playthings for chil- 

 dren, although over four millenniums ago, about 2250 B.C., 

 wild tribes brought, among other tribute, to the Chinese 

 Emperor Yu, fish and oyster-pearls. Mother-of-pearl shell, 

 which when procured in any quantity must have been 

 obtained by diving, was in use as carved ornaments in 

 the sixth dynasty of ancient Thebes, about 3200 B.C. No 

 pearls have been found in Babylon, but mother-of-pearl 

 inlays occur in the ruins of Bismaya, which must have 

 been gathered by divers and fashioned by artisans around 

 4500 B.C. 



Man's control over the water, unaided by artificial 

 means, is pitiful when compared with his feats in more 

 congenial surroundings in the air on land. The fastest 



