A DESCENT INTO PERPETUAL NIGHT 21 5 



unknown. Best of all, instant transference into iced salt 

 water revived many of them. 



Here again John Tee-Van was in charge of the deck 

 machinery with Bass and Ramsey as aides. I was winch- 

 man except at the actual incoming of the nets, when Miss 

 Crane and I watched and took notes of the movements 

 and colors of the living and just dead catch. A pair of 

 ten-inch scimitar-mouths, such as I had seen on the last 

 dive at a depth of four hundred and sixteen fathoms, were 

 alive, and for the first time we had a black swallower, 

 Chiasinodon niger, swimming full speed about his jar. Un- 

 like most of his kind, his stomach was empty and not dis- 

 tended with one of his unbelievably enormous meals. An- 

 other treasure was a living, gay-colored, semi-transparent, 

 telescope-eyed Dolichopteryx, the Long-finned Ghostfish, 

 probably a new species. It was the sixteenth of the whole 

 genus to be taken by man, and the first ever to be seen 

 alive. 



Day after day my weather held good and Wednesday, 

 August fifteenth, was no exception. At 6:45 in early morn- 

 ing we were arranging to leave St. Georges anchorage, the 

 barge Ready with the bathysphere and ourselves, and the 

 tug Gladisfen towing. Three hours later Mr. Barton and 

 I were dropped overboard far out at sea. As well as we 

 could determine from sights on the lighthouses we sub- 

 merged at the identical spot into which we had splashed 

 four days before. 



The same spot, but far from the same visible life. Sur- 



