18 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



required fully two minutes to draw the diver from 

 the water and loose his helmet. On one occasion 

 the yard cracked, and threatened to break at the 

 very moment when I had given orders to haul in 

 the rope under the impression that I had received 

 a signal of distress; our men instantly sprang 

 towards the water, and they would soon have 

 brought M. Edwards to the surface, but more than 

 five minutes elapsed between the moment when I 

 thought I felt the cord move, and that in which M. 

 Edwards was able to breathe the air freely ; and 

 this length of time would have been more than suf- 

 ficient to determine a fatal condition of asphyxia. 

 Happily, however, I had been deceived by an in- 

 voluntary motion imparted to the telegraphic line ; 

 but one may easily perceive that researches of this 

 nature were not devoid of danger, and it certainly 

 requires an amount of zeal very uncommon among 

 naturalists of our day to risk so perilous an under- 

 taking. 



M. Edwards, however, reaped an ample harvest as 

 the reward of his labours ; for each time that he 

 returned from the bottom of the sea, his box was 

 richly laden with Molluscs and Zoophytes. The 

 most precious, however, of all the treasures which 

 he collected from these submarine depths, was an 

 immense quantity of the ova of Molluscs and An- 

 nelids. After being deposited in small basins, to 

 which the waves entered merely by penetrating 

 through the walls of dry stones which had been 

 raised around them, these eggs continued to be de- 

 veloped, and thus enabled M. Edwards to study 



