224 A DESCENT INTO PERPETUAL NIGHT 



the glow from the lamps of other organisms, and, strang- 

 est of all the inhabitants of the deeper parts of the ocean, 

 those blind from birth to death, whose sole assistants, to 

 food, to mates and from enemies, were cunning sense or- 

 gans in the skin, or long, tendril-like rays of their fins. 



Before we began to ascend, I had to stop making notes 

 of my own, so numb were my fingers from the cold steel 

 of the window sill, and to change from my cushion to 

 the metal floor, was like shifting to a cake of ice. Of the 

 blackness of the outside water I have already written too 

 much. As to pressure, there seemed no reason why we 

 should not be outside in a diving helmet as well as in. I 

 thought of a gondola 60,000 feet up in the stratosphere 

 with a pressure of one pound to the square inch. And then 

 through the telephone we learned that at this moment we 

 were under a pressure of 1 3 60 pounds to each square inch, 

 or well over half a ton. Each window held back over nine- 

 teen tons of water, while a total of 7016 tons were piled 

 up in all directions upon the bathysphere itself. Yes, we 

 had heard clearly, we were ready to be pulled up at once! 



At 2929 feet I heard a metallic twang through the 

 phone, asked what it was, and got some noncommittal 

 answer. I found out later that one of the guy ropes used 

 in spooling the incoming cable on the drum had suddenly 

 given way with a terrific report — a ghastly shock to every- 

 one on deck until they realized it was a rope and not the 

 cable. Truly we in the bathysphere had the best of it at 

 all times. 



