8i THE SEA. 



calling for an ' air bath/ The air-pump redoubles its pace in working, and sends 

 down to them through the pump an extra current of air, which soon blows away the mist. 

 " I was very soon enabled to judge for myself as to their industry ; sacks which they 

 had filled with muddy sand, and buckets laden with stones, came up to the surface every 

 moment, drawn by cords. One might have fancied it to be the mouth of a mine, to 

 which invisible arms were constantly sending up fragments of rock; but here the mine 

 was the sea. The nature of their digging did not allow them to work very long together 

 in the same place. The divers had already requested by signal to have their position 



DIVERS ATTACKED BY A SWORD-FISH. 



shifted on the bed of the sound. How would they manage to comply with their wish ? 

 As regards air and locomotion, the men shut up in the bell depend entirely on the 

 apparatus working on the surface. The chief organ of movement is a sort of traveller 

 on four wheels, running over two tramways, allowing it to come and go in every direction. 

 Immediately on the signal being given from below, the bell was raised from the bottom 

 of the sea, like a heavy balloon. This operation was, of course, carried out by means of chains, 

 and the diving-bell remained for a minute or two motionless in mid-water, like the 

 pendulum of a stopped clock. But the traveller begins to move, and as it also acts as a 

 crane, the pulley on the surface and the bell under water shift their position at the same 

 time. The divers call this ' travelling/ They can thus move from north to south, from 

 east to west, backwards and forwards. As they are in motion, if they come upon a 

 piece of rock which encumbers the bed of the sound, they give the signal to stop, and the 

 bell becomes stationary, and then descends again slowly towards the block of stones. If 



