1^8 A DESCENT INTO PERPETUAL NIGHT 



something wholly unreal and at the same time rather 

 amusing about an upward view of the slow-rolling bot- 

 tom of an unanchored boat, whose deck, a few minutes 

 before, had seemed so solid and staunch. 



The sun was blazing over the ocean, the surface was 

 unusually quiet; conditions were perfect for whatever the 

 eyes could carry to the brain. A question came over the 

 phone, an answer went, and down we slipped through the 

 water. As I have said, the first plunge erases, to the eye, 

 all the comforting, warm rays of the spectrum. The red 

 and the orange are as if they had never been, and soon 

 the yellow is swallowed up in the green. We cherish all 

 these on the surface of the earth and when they are win- 

 nowed out at loo feet or more, although they are only 

 one-sixth of the visible spectrum, yet, in our mind, all the 

 rest belongs to chill and night and death. Even modern 

 war bears this out; no more are red blood and scarlet 

 flames its symbols, but the terrible grayness of gas, the 

 ghastly blue of Very lights. 



The green faded imperceptibly as we went down, and 

 at 200 feet it was impossible to say whether the water was 

 greenish-blue or bluish-green. At this depth I made my 

 eyes focus in mid-water and saw small creatures clearly, 

 copepods and others of the innumerable swarms which 

 haunt the upper layers. 



At 320 feet a lovely colony of siphonophores drifted 

 past. At this level they appeared like spun glass. Others 

 which I saw at far greater and blacker depths were illu- 



