BATHYSPHERE DIVE THIRTY-FIVE 263 



of the right hand one when the hght was off. How I envied 

 Mr. Barton his many trips with the Director. 



What I had seen out of the windows was unexpected, 

 even after all of the reports I had heard coming over the 

 telephone wires. For years I had watched our deep-sea nets 

 arrive at the surface after having been towed in the ocean 

 for four or five hours, each net containing a scant pint or 

 so of minute animal life plus occasional larger fish or 

 shrimps. From these results I had visualized the depths of 

 the ocean as beautifully transparent and rather sparsely 

 populated. But through the bathysphere's windows was 

 evidence that our nets, which are the best of oceanographic 

 nets, gave a totally false picture of the abundance of life 

 in this part of the ocean. Discounting the larger fish and 

 shrimps that constantly advertised themselves by flashing 

 lights, we passed through vast numbers of small and mod- 

 erate-sized organisms, distributed through a wide range 

 of the phyla of the animal kingdom. Nothing that our 

 nets had produced had prepared me for as much life as I 

 had seen. 



