A DESCENT INTO PERPETUAL NIGHT 1 8/ 



New York Zoological Society at New Nonsuch, the home 

 of our library, instruments, and collections, where all of 

 our preparations and researches are carried on; and finally 

 our fleet — the Skink, Gladisfen, and Ready, fifteen minutes 

 away in St. Georges harbor, the direct link between our- 

 selves and our oceanographic investigations. 



Day after day as we passed the tourist-laden tender en 

 route to the great Furness Line vessels, we watched the 

 shining black bodies of the colored divers shoot down into 

 the green water in pursuit of far-flung shillings. Here were 

 the Alpha and Omega of human penetration of the water 

 — naked diver and bathysphere. 



The simple phrase "three hours and a half mile" worked 

 on everyone in the same way; each possible bit of inani- 

 mate apparatus was tested and retested as it had never been 

 before in past years of diving. On the sixth of August, 

 when we were ready to put to sea, our grand Captain, 

 Jimmie Sylvester, announced that he wanted a rehearsal 

 for the whole crew, while we were still tied up to the 

 ancient three-master close to shore. So we all foregathered, 

 set the instruments to work, put every man at his station 

 and Mr. Barton and I climbed into the bathysphere. The 

 great door was lifted and swung home with its old fa- 

 miliar clang. Some things pass easily from mind, but all 

 overtones and undertones of an experience such as this 

 remain vivid in that paradox — our silent memory of sound. 

 There followed the ear-splitting crash of hammer on 

 wrench as one mighty nut after another was twisted home. 



