1^6 A DESCENT INTO PERPETUAL NIGHT 



southeast of Nonsuch Island, and at once slowed down, 

 headed upswell and prepared to dive. 



More than three and a half years ago I dived to a depth 

 of fourteen hundred and twenty-six feet, and here I was 

 on the selfsame ancient barge with the identical bathy- 

 sphere, and within a mile and a half of the very spot where 

 I made the former descent. An equal distance to the east 

 marked the spot of a more recent dive to twenty-two 

 hundred feet. 



All the sights which came to my eyes are as vivid now 

 as then, yet on the eve of this new venture I felt as if the 

 former dives had been nothing but amazing dreams, that 

 my ignorance of the world of life beneath our feet was 

 almost complete. 



If any of these thoughts went through my mind at the 

 time it must have been as a mere flash, for my chief con- 

 cern at the present moment was to wriggle over the un- 

 pleasant bolts with as little damage as possible, coil myself 

 up in the window sector of the bathysphere, clamp on 

 my telephone outfit and arrange all my instruments and 

 small but necessary possessions. 



Adequate presentation of what I saw on this dive is one 

 of the most difficult things I ever attempted. It corresponds 

 precisely to putting the question, "What do you think of 

 America?'* to a foreigner who has spent a few hours in 

 New York City. Only the five of us who have gone down 

 even to looo feet in the bathysphere know how hard it 

 is to find words to translate this alien world. 



