RENAISSANCE 1 47 



oiled, poised in the hangar or garage ready for its supreme 

 effort. But our poor old bathysphere appeared rather more 

 like some ancient Galapagos tortoise, or the shell of a sea- 

 turtle, scarred and dull, barnacled and stained. She had 

 no name painted in bright letters and her sides were 

 smeared and dimmed with oil and grease. Close alongside 

 rested the great Arcturus seven-ton winch, with its roll 

 upon roll of wire. Even this was covered with oily grime 

 with a faint tinge of rust here and there. A slight flick 

 with a knife blade showed however that this was as super- 

 ficial as dust, and the steel shone forth beneath, bright as 

 silver. I crept around to the front of the bathysphere and 

 gently rubbed the surface of its smooth eyes with my 

 handkerchief. The great quartz windows gave me stare 

 for stare, only my face being visible now that the interior 

 was hermetically sealed, as it had been for more than a 

 year. 



There seemed no change in the glass — the right hand 

 one slightly smoky, but the center one — through which 

 I had first seen the creatures of the deep — clear as only 

 fused quartz can be. I pushed at the side of the sphere 

 but its two tons of weight stirred not a hair's breadth. 



Then I stepped back and a shackle was slipped into one 

 of the suspending holes, a hand waved, and the maze of 

 pulley wires moved and straightened, became taut, and 

 the mighty globe of steel rose gently from its bed, swing- 

 ing slowly back and forth in the air. As it curved high 

 overhead and descended without a jar on to the deck of 



