they lead a wretched existence. Since we didn't land, some of them 

 came off in a small boat to offer us eggs, even a chicken, in exchange 

 for cigarettes. The first day we thought we saw a large lake on the 

 island, at sea- level. The breeze was light ; but strangely enough large 

 waves seemed to wrinkle its surface. From hour to hour, more extra- 

 ordinary still, the lake changed its shape: it spread out, and then 

 shrank. The next day it had disappeared. It was a mirage. 



The first descent was to be made at a depth of 14 fathoms : I wanted 

 the divers to be able to come with us, to survey operations, particularly 

 to check our unballasting. Although I was persuaded that there was 

 nothing to fear on this score, it seemed prudent to be able to call upon 

 them for help in any case. 



As our submarine had to be able to make tests without a crew, we 

 had equipped it with an automatic pilot : it had to cut off the current 

 to the electro-magnets by means of a servo-mechanism manufactured 

 by Sprecher u. Schuh (Aarau, Switzerland) and thus release the 

 ballast as soon as the Haenni pressure gauge recorded arrival at the 

 prescribed depth. But it could have happened that, either through a 

 mistake in the level, or as a result of drifting, the bathyscaphe came to 

 rest on the ground without having reached the depth intended: to 

 arrange that in this case the pilot would not remain inactive, it had 

 been equipped with a Longines time-switch which, at the end of a set 

 time, should set off the unballasting and the ascent. Besides this, a 

 special installation was to start off the same operation in the case of 

 water leaking into the cabin. For this first descent in shallow water, 

 where there were to be two of us in the cabin, the automatic pilot was 

 not needed. It had been understood that it would not be connected up. 

 However, without mentioning it to me M. Cosyns had connected it, 

 merely being satisfied with not rewinding the time switch. For my 

 part I had wound up the time switch to see if it was working well. 



What had to happen, did happen. At H-hour, while the bathyscaphe 

 was still in the bottom of the hold and we were preparing to transfer 

 it to the water, the current to the electro-magnets was cut automatic- 

 ally and one of the big batteries was detached and damaged. This 

 accident held up our operations for one day, a delay at first sight 

 without importance, but annoying when one must work within a very 

 limited time. However, this made it evident that our robot was 

 behaving itself. 



On the 26th October, finally, all was ready for the first dive. 



[56] 



