CONTOUR DIVING 141 



getting badly tangled in one of those steel-hard, outreach- 

 ing crags would not have been so good (Fig. 57) . 



On the other side I had us lowered 6$ feet as the bottom 

 sloped rather steeply, and when we were again within a 

 few feet of the bottom I saw below us a wide beach of 

 white sand, mixed with water-worn pebbles and shells and 

 sloping against the outer base of the great reef. I could 

 even see ripple marks and could distinguish the various 

 kinds of shells. This was to me one of the most interesting 

 discoveries of all my dives. It was undoubtedly the old 

 foreshore of Bermuda, the ancient beach which was above 

 water at the last glacial period, say twenty-five thousand 

 years ago. At that time there was so much ice locked up 

 on the continents that the oceans were 250 feet lower 

 than they are at present, and the dry land area of Bermuda 

 was then doubtless measured in hundreds instead of tens 

 of miles. Not far beyond this beach of olden time an 

 abrupt and awful drop led down into a bluish-black abyss, 

 where the bottom was lost and could not be recovered 

 without too much risk. 



Visibility was usually excellent, except close in-shore 

 and for a few days after a severe storm or hurricane, when 

 cloudiness put an end to the work. When the water was 

 clear I could make out and identify all coral and algal 

 growths, and fish down to two inches in length. After 

 several years' work in the diving helmet, I was familiar 

 with the Bermuda fauna down to six and eight fathoms, 

 and now the thing which impressed me most as I went 



