Taylor had viewed these objects within a half century of 

 the disaster which overtook the galleon, whereas our pre- 

 vious explorations had been confined to ships which had 

 been underwater from one to four centuries. 



Here in Taylor's account we were provided with first- 

 hand information as to the action of these waters in the 

 vicinity of the Silver banks on foreign substances, and 

 the rate of coral growth to be expected over a fairly exact 

 period of time. The missing part of the puzzle was the ex- 

 act number of years which elapsed between the time of 

 the galleon's sinking and its salvaging by Phips. It might 

 be forty-three years, as Taylor claimed, or a matter of 

 twenty-eight years, if Korganoff was right in his research. 



In either case, if coral could succeed in covering 

 wreckage to such an extent in that very limited time, was 

 it not possible that today, after several centuries of coral 

 growth, the wreckage would be completely hidden from 

 human eyes? 



Mindful as we were of the different pressures at vari- 

 ous levels below the surface and their effect on the diver, 

 according to the depth of his dive and the length of time 

 he spends below, John Taylor's comment on how Phips's 

 Indian divers met the situation fascinated us. He wrote: 



And I observed that the Indian divers, when 

 they rise up out of the water, as soon as they put 

 their heads above the same, would in an instant duck 

 their head under water and there keep it about a 

 quarter of a minute, and then rise up and recover 

 the boat; for they said if they should at first receive 

 too much of the land air it would destroy them, but 

 by the concoction of the first received air they got 

 strength to enable them to receive the benefits of the 

 air fully like others which dived not. 



Taylor's observation that after "they rise up out of the 

 water," they "in an instant duck their head under water 



The Silver Shoals 279 



