254 BATHYSPHERE DIVE THIRTY-FIVE 



sealed tight inside our metal ball, with no possible chance 

 of opening the door. Our telephones were connected and 

 we were nothing but a voice to those outside on the deck. 



Out there, preparations were being made to lift the 

 sphere, and in a few moments we felt the gentle heave and 

 sway that showed we were off the deck and swinging in 

 the air. The Director called "Brace yourself!", and I, seated 

 in Mr. Barton's usual position, held onto the chemical ap- 

 paratus and an oxygen tank until, with a plainly audible, 

 gurgling splash, we landed in the water. We rested there 

 a moment or two, alternating, as we rose and fell with the 

 roll of the Ready, between blue of sky, top of sea, and the 

 more tenuous, yellow green of under-surface. Then we 

 started slowly down past the weed- and barnacle-encrusted 

 hull to the clear waters beneath. 



From this moment we practically discarded all senses but 

 sight. We became, like the bathysphere itself, two huge 

 eyes looking out upon a world that had existed with little 

 change for countless centuries. 



The reversed waves, seen from below the surface, were 

 much more satiny and less troubled than they had seemed 

 just a short while ago. Immediately below the top were all 

 the familiar surface-living animals, present in vast num- 

 bers and easily visible as the sun shone on their upper 

 sides. Copepods were to be seen, and small shrimp-like 

 creatures. Occasionally a sagitta became something more 

 than an indeterminate bit of matter, or a pteropod could 

 be identified. 



