TO DAVY Jones's locker 123 



both were made in full sunlight, resulted in fifty per cent 

 less illumination at 10 a.m. than at noon. 



At 500 feet I had fleeting glimpses of fish nearly two 

 feet long, perhaps surface forms, and here for the first time 

 I saw strange, ghostly, dark forms hovering in the distance, 

 — forms which never came nearer, but reappeared at 

 deeper, darker depths. Flying snails passed in companies 

 of fifty or more, looking like brown bubbles. I had seen 

 them alive in the net hauls, but here they were at home 

 in thousands. As they perished from old age or accident or 

 what-not, their shells drifted slowly to the bottom, a mile 

 and a half down, and several times when my net had 

 accidentally touched bottom it had brought up quarts of 

 the empty, tinkling shells. 



Small, ordinary-looking squids balanced in mid-water. 

 I hoped to see some of the larger ones, those with orange, 

 bull's-eye lights at the tips of their arms, or the ones which 

 glow with blue, yellow, and red light organs. None came 

 close enough, however, or it may be I must wait until I 

 can descend a mile and still live, before I can come to 

 their haunts. 



A four-inch fish came into view and nosed the baited 

 hook. It was almost transparent, the vertebrse and body 

 organs being plainly visible, the eyes and the food-filled 

 stomach the only opaque parts. Since making the dive I 

 have twice captured this fish, the pinkish, semi-transparent 

 young of the scarlet, big-eyed snapper. 



At 550 feet I found the temperature inside the bell was 



