30 THE FIRST DIVERS 



out of sight were the most dangerous of all, there being 

 some which were so fixed that they did not appear above 

 the water; and no vessel could safely come near. They 

 were like a sunken reef, and a pilot, not seeing them, 

 might easily catch his ship upon them. Even these were 

 sawn off by men who dived for hire; but the Syracusans 

 drove them in again. Many were the contrivances em- 

 ployed on both sides, as was very natural, when two armies 

 confronted each other at so short a distance. There were 

 continual skirmishes, and they produced all kinds of strata- 

 gems." 



No diving apparatus is mentioned but if anyone has 

 ever tried to submerge without a helmet and saw off even 

 a slender stem, the conviction will arise that these Athe- 

 nians must have had an air supply of some sort. 



Aristotle, like some other early writers, seems to take 

 it for granted that we know all about the details of div- 

 ing in those days, and more often than not, introduces 

 the subject as a simile, or an aside. For example, he writes, 

 "Just as divers are sometimes provided with instruments 

 for respiration, through which they can draw air from 

 above the water, and thus remain for a long time under 

 the sea, so also have elephants been furnished by nature 

 with their lengthened nostril; and whenever they have to 

 traverse the water, they lift this above the surface and 

 breathe through it." Whether this apparatus was some 

 early form of helmet and tube, or more likely whether 



