A DESCENT INTO PERPETUAL NIGHT 225 



Whenever I sink below the last rays of light, similes 

 pour in upon me. Throughout all this account I have con- 

 sciously rejected the scores of "as ifs" which sprang to 

 mind. The stranger the situation the more does it seem 

 imperative to use comparisons. The eternal one, the one 

 most worthy and which will not pass from mind, the only 

 other place comparable to these marvelous nether regions, 

 must surely be naked space itself, out far beyond atmos- 

 phere, between the stars, where sunlight has no grip upon 

 the dust and rubbish of planetary air, where the black- 

 ness of space, the shining planets, comets, suns, and stars 

 must really be closely akin to the world of life as it ap- 

 pears to the eyes of an awed human being, in the open 

 ocean, one half mile down. 



