DIVING APPARATUS. 243 



sea provides a means of transport at once agreeable 

 and convenient. The sea supports tlie load, the 

 wind propels it, and man directs it on its journey. 

 From this easy means of transport results a great 

 commercial movement, a circulation of ideas as well 

 as products, which enlarges the field of industrial 

 genius, encourages useful inventions, promotes that 

 affability and those humane feelings which spring 

 from much intercourse, and, in a word, developes 

 relations between one people and another which 

 could not otherwise be established. Further, the 

 discoveries of sailors, the voyages to distant countries, 

 to very different climates with varied productions, 

 the rapidity of exchange, and the wellbeing which 

 results, are the first step towards that universal 

 union which is the end and aim of all civilisation 

 properly understood. 



2. Exploration of the Bottom of the Sea — Diving Apparatus — In- 

 vention of MM. Eouquayrol and Denayronze — Submarine 

 Electric lUuminatiun — Salvage of objects sunk in the Sea — A 

 Chest of Gold recovered under peculiar circumstances in thn 

 Port of Marseilles. 



The (exploration of the bottom of the sea made but 

 little progress in ancient times, or in the middle 

 ages. During many centuiies the few attempts of 

 which we hear are rather of a legendary than 



