AT THE END OF THE SPECTRUM 1 6/ 



Not a ray of light illumined the inside of the bathysphere. 

 Barton's voice seemed as unattached as that coming down 

 the wire. Once when he unexpectedly threw on his pencil 

 flash to examine the oxygen dial, I jumped as if the thin 

 beam had been sound instead of light. 



At 1825 feet coiled pteropods, almost certainly Lima- 

 cimiy appeared by the dozen, clearly seen in our ray of 

 light, and silver hatchet-fish, or Argyropelecus, of adult 

 size were illumined by each other. They swam so closely 

 together I could not judge of the amount of visibility 

 which the lights of each individual fish would show. Their 

 photophores appeared as pale blue and not purple as they 

 appear in sunlight, A school of small lanternfish went past 

 and their lights were not dimmed as they were higher up, 

 but showed clearly even in the pale blue glare of the outer 

 rim of the electric light path. A single large fish, which 

 we estimated at four feet in length, went by at 1850 feet, 

 so rapidly that I got only a fleeting glimpse of many lights 

 along a rather deep body. Once a school of large squids 

 balanced near me, fulfilling my hope of two years ago. 

 Their great eyes, each illumined with a circle of colored 

 lights, stared in at me — those unbelievably intelligent yet 

 reasonless eyes backed by no brain and set in a snail (Fig. 

 102). 



At 1950 feet we got our first bad pitching. It was un- 

 expected and I cut my lip and forehead against the win- 

 dow ledge and Barton struck his head against the door. 

 This gave us the worst fright of the entire dive, and for 



