21 8 A DESCENT INTO PERPETUAL NIGHT 



Another advance in bathyspheric educational technique 

 was unconscious and was only accidentally brought to 

 conscious realization. On a succeeding dive I went down 

 fifteen hundred feet and took Mr. Tee-Van and he won- 

 dered at my ability to identify organisms which to him, 

 on this first descent into the dark zone, were only indi- 

 vidual lights. As we compared notes I realized that I had 

 learned instinctively to ignore the light as soon as possible 

 and look to left or right of it. Exactly as the spiral nebula 

 in Andromeda can be seen most clearly by looking a little 

 to one side, so the sudden flashing out of a light is less 

 blinding when viewed indirectly, and simultaneously its 

 author may more than likely come into focus. Before we 

 returned to the surface Tee- Van had followed this method 

 and we saw eye to eye in subsequent identifications. 



At 1800 I saw a small fish with illumined teeth, lighted 

 from below, with distinct black interspaces; and ten feet 

 below this my favorite sea-dragons, Lamprotoxus, ap- 

 peared, they of the shining green bow. Only sixteen of 

 these fish have ever been taken, seven of which came up in 

 our own nets. The record size is about eight inches, while 

 here before me were four individuals all more than twice 

 that length, and very probably representing a new species. 

 The green side line glowed but the long chin tentacle was 

 quite invisible, certainly giving out no light. At 2 1 00 feet 

 two large fish, quite three feet over all, lighted up and 

 then became one with the darkness about them, a tanta- 



