258 BATHYSPHERE DIVE THIRTY-FIVE 



pressure that were increasing with every foot that we 

 dropped down. We breathed air richer and purer than the 

 air of our streets, for our oxygen was escaping at a Httle 

 more than the normal rate of consumption. So much a 

 part of the bathysphere does one become that the machin- 

 ery is soon forgotten, and it is with an effort or at Miss 

 HolHster's request from above that one remembers that 

 the oxygen gauges must be read, and that stuffing-box, 

 door, and chemical trays had better be examined. 



Once below the surface no noise from outside the sphere 

 reached us, principally because there was no noise and no 

 air to cause a gurgle. Inside, the only sound — not counting 

 our excited speech and occasional scuff of shoe — was the 

 continuous drone of the air-blower, which changed its tone 

 whenever the searchlight was switched on or off. 



Although we accepted our immediate metallic surround- 

 ings with little or no questioning, it was far different when 

 we looked through the quartz lenses out into the sea. Here 

 was something totally and unbelievably different from 

 anything that I had ever imagined before. Color and light 

 were not as they were in the world that I had lived in. 

 When we left the region just below the surface everything 

 had been a yellow-blue-green, which as we went down 

 soon lost its yellow and became more blue-green. Still fur- 

 ther on the green disappeared and, as it became darker and 

 darker even the blue was less noticeable, and at 1200 feet 

 nothing remained of color outside the window — every- 

 where was a dull, dark, tenuous gray that grew less and less 



