66 THE SEA. 



CHAPTER VI. 

 DAVY JONES'S LOCKER AND ITS TREASURES. 



Clarence's Dream Davy Jones's Locker Origin of the Term Treasures of the Ocean Pearl Fishing -Mother o' Pearl- 

 Formation of Pearls Art and Nature Combined The Fisheries The Divers and their modus operandi Dangers 

 of the Trade Gambling with Oysters Noted Pearls Cleopatra's Costly Draught Scottish Pearls very Valuable- 

 Coral Its Place in Nature The Fisheries Hard Work and Poor Pay The Apparatus Used Coral Atolls- 

 Darwin's Investigations Theories and Facts Characteristics of the Reefs Beauty of the Submarine Forests- 

 Victorious Polyps- The Sponge a Marine Animal The Fisheries Harpooning and Diving Value of Sponges. 



I saw a thousand fearful wracks : 



A thousand men that fishes gnawed upon: 



Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, 



Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels, 



All scattered in the bottom of the sea. 



Some lay in dead men's skulls ; and in those holes 



Where eyes did once inhabit there were crept, 



As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems, 



That wooed the slimy bottom of the deep, 



And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered there." 



So dreamed Clarence on a memorable night, and, indeed, what treasures, known and 

 unknown, must not the ocean cover ! 



The well-known term which forms the heading of this chapter, with its popularly- 

 understood meaning, is familiar to every schoolboy, yet its origin is most obscure. Mr. 

 Pinkerton, an ingenious correspondent of that valuable medium of inquiry, Notes and 

 Queries,* argues as follows, and his opinion is entitled to respect. He says : " I 

 have arrived at the conclusion that the phrase is derived from the Scriptural account 

 of the prophet Jonah. The word locker, on board ship, generally means the place 

 where any particular thing is retained or kept, as { the bread locker/ ' shot locker/ &c. In 

 the ode in the second chapter of the Book of Jonah, we find that the prophet, praying 

 for deliverance, describes his situation in the following words : c In the midst of the seas ; 

 and the floods compassed me about ; the depth closed me round about ; the earth with her 

 bars was about me/ 



" The sea, then, might not misappropriately be termed by a rude mariner Jonah's 

 locker : that is, the place where Jonah was kept or confined. Jonah's locker, in time, 

 might readily be corrupted to Jones's locker, and Davy, as a very common Welsh 

 accompaniment of the equally Welsh name Jones, added ; the true derivation of the 

 phrase having been forgotten." 



However this may be, it is of the hidden treasures of the ocean locker and its 

 explorers we would now speak. And first let us take a glance at the pearl, coral, and 

 sponge fisheries,f as they are somewhat incorrectly called, inasmuch as it will pave 

 the way to the subject of divers and diving. 



*Vol. III., First Series, page 509. 



.f This chapter is based on the works of Tennant, Darwin, Gosse, Figuier, and other authorities. 



