A DESCENT INTO PERPETUAL NIGHT 185 



day she was hoisted into the blazing sunHght and lowered 

 gently on to her old mother ship, the Ready, from whose 

 deck she would again sink deep into the ocean. 



Early on the first clear morning I took my associate, 

 John Tee-Van, and my two assistants, Bass and Ramsey, 

 down to the farthest end of St. Georges harbor where, in 

 the midst of a welter of ancient ships, we found the Ready. 

 Here is a Peruvian gunboat, once bought by some Ameri- 

 cans for a round-the-world cruise, which died a natural 

 death in these waters; here is the tug Gladisfen, newly 

 painted, which for five years has faithfully drawn our 

 deep-sea nets — fifteen hundred of them — through the 

 waters of our eight-mile circle off Nonsuch Island. Finally 

 our old friend, the Taiftin, was here, a three-masted 

 schooner slowly rusting away on an even keel, to whose 

 side the Ready was lashed. 



The dark blue color of the bathysphere was sadly 

 marred and scratched by her long journey and her sojourn 

 at the Century of Progress, and her great eyes were 

 closed with wooden lids. With an impromptu block and 

 tackle we got off the heavy door, and took out all the new 

 gear. I prised off the thick, wooden eye plugs, and the new 

 quartz lenses gleamed with the sheer transparency of 

 mighty Kohinoor diamonds. New steel frames, much 

 stronger than the old ones, held the three-inch-thick masses 

 of quartz as firmly as though they were part of the very 

 steel. In fact, I realized that of the old bathysphere which 

 had carried us down and up so safely nothing remained 



