BATHYSPHERE DIVE THIRTY-FIVE z6l 



Some of the combinations of lights were unintelligible 

 to me until the Director explained their significance. Thus 

 one of the commonest sights were groups of lights that dis- 

 ported themselves immediately before the windows and 

 which the Director spoke of as hatchet-fishes, Argyrope- 

 lecus and Sternoptyx. With the key to what they were in 

 my mind, no doubt could be entertained, as the lights cor- 

 responded with what I knew of the creatures as they came 

 up in our deep-sea nets. 



Other lights constantly broke into our vision as small 

 crustaceans or larger shrimps came close to the window, 

 some of the latter throwing out diffuse showers of light. 



The Director called my attention to the fact that the 

 light that we saw was rarely diffuse, but practically always 

 in the form of definite, isolated spots, totally different from 

 the luminosity that we have at the surface. 



Thirty minutes at the greatest depth left me exhausted 

 with excitement, full of too many things seen and in- 

 capable of absorbing more; fish succeeded fish, and shrimps 

 followed shrimps. We started upward at last, our search- 

 light alternately being turned off and on. A siphonophore 

 four inches long with delicate upper bract and trailing 

 tentacle passed the window. Two or three leptocephalids 

 came into sight, one of them about eight inches in length, 

 elongate and narrow and probably of the common Ser- 

 rivomer type. As we approached the surface, larger or- 

 ganisms became fewer, while the abundance of minute life 



