Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 23, February, 1873

Raising your eyes to the horizontal and looking straight forward, a new and beautiful wealth of color is developed. It is at first a delicate blue, as if an accidental color of the prevailing yellow. But soon it deepens into a rich violet. You feel as if you had never before appreciated the loveliness of that rich tint. As your eye dwells upon it the rich lustrous violet darkens to indigo, and sinking into deeper hues becomes a majestic threat of color. It is ominous, vivid blue-black—solid, adamantine, a crystal wall of amethyst. It is all around you. You are cased, dungeoned in the solid masonry of the waters. It is beauty indeed, but the sombre and awful beauty of the night and storm. The eye turns for relief and reassurance to the paly-golden lustrous roof, and watches that tender penciling which brightens every object it touches. The hull of the sunken ship, lying slant and open to the sun, has been long enough submerged to be crusted with barnacles, hydropores, crustacea and the labored constructions of the microscopic existences and vegetation that fill the sea. The song of Ariel becomes vivid and realistic in its rich word-power:

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

The transfiguration of familiar objects is indeed curious and wonderful. The hulk, once gaudy with paint and gilding, has come under the skill of the lapidary and sea-artist. It is crusted with emerald and flossy mosses, and glimmers with diamond, jacinth, ruby, topaz, sapphire and gold. Every jewel-shape in leaf, spore, coral or plume, lying on a greenish crystalline ground, is fringed with a soft radiance of silver fire, and every point is tipped in minute ciliate flames of faint steely purple. It is spotted with soft velvety black wherever a shadow falls, that mingles and varies the wonderful display of color. It is brilliant, vivid, changeable with the interferences of light from the fluctuating surface above, which transmogrifies everything—touches the coarsest objects with its pencil, and they become radiant and spiritual. A pile of brick, dumped carelessly on the deck, has become a huge hill of crystal jewelry, lively with brilliant prismatic radiance. Where the light falls on the steps of the staircase it shows a ladder of silver crusted with emeralds. The round-house, spars, masts, every spot where a peak or angle catches the light, have flushed into liquid, jeweled beauty; and each point, a prism and mirror, catches, multiplies and reflects the other splendor. A rainbow, a fleecy mist over the lake, made prismal by the sunlight, a bunch of sub-aqueous moss, a soap-bubble, are all examples in our daily experience of that transforming power of water in the display of color. The prevailing tone is that soft, golden effulgence which, like the grace of a cheerful and loving heart, blends all into one harmonious whole.

But observation warns the spectator of the delusive character of all that splendor of color. He lifts a box from the ooze: he appears to have uncorked the world. The hold is a bottomless chasm. Every indentation, every acclivity that casts a shadow, gives the impression of that soundless depth. The bottom of the sea seems loopholed with cavities that pierce the solid globe and the dark abysses of space beyond. The diver is surrounded by pitfalls, real and imaginary. There is no graduation. The shallow concave of a hand-basin is as the shadow of the bottomless well.

If the exploration takes place in the delta of a great river, the light is affected by the various densities of the double refracting media. At the proper depth one can see clearly the line where these two meet, clean cut and as sharply defined as the bottom of a green glass tumbler through the pure water it contains. The salt brine or gelatinous sea-water sinks weighted to the bottom, and over it flows the fresh river-water. If the latter is darkened with sediment, it obscures the silent depths with a heavy, gloomy cloud. In seasons of freshet this becomes a total darkness.

But even on a bright, sunshiny day, under clear water, the shadow of any object in the sea is unlike any shade in the upper atmosphere. It draws a black curtain over everything under it, completely obscuring it. Nor is this peculiarity lost when the explorer enters the shadow; but, as one looking into a tunnel from without can see nothing therein, though the open country beyond is plainly visible, so, standing in that submarine shadow, all around is dark, though beyond the sable curtain of the shadow the view is clear. Apply this optical fact to the ghastly story of a diver's alleged experience in the cabin of a sunken ship. It is narrated that there was revealed to his appalled sight the spectacle of the drowned passengers in various attitudes of alarm or devotion when the dreadful suffocation came. The story is told with great effect and power, but unless a voltaic lantern is included in the stage furniture, the ghastly tableaux must sink into the limbo of incredibilities.

The cabin of a sunken vessel is dark beyond any supernal conception of darkness. Even a cabin window does not alter this law, though it may be itself visible, with objects on its surface, as in a child's magic-lantern. As the rays of light pass through an object flatwise, like the blade of a knife through the leaves of a book, and may be admitted through another of like character in the plane of the first, so a ray of light can penetrate with deflection through air and water. But becoming polarized, the interposition of a third medium ordinarily transparent will stop it altogether. Hence the plate-glass window under water admits no light into the interior of a cabin. The distrust of sight grows with the diver's experience. The eye brings its habit of estimating proportion and distance from an attenuated atmosphere into another and denser medium, and the seer is continually deceived by the change. He hesitates, halts, and is observant of the pitfalls about him. A gang-plank slightly above the surface of the deck is bordered, where its shadow falls, by dismal trenches. There is a range of hills crossing the deck before him. As he approaches he estimates the difficulty of the ascent. At its apparent foot he reaches to clamber the steep sides, and the sierra is still a step beyond his reach. Drawing still nearer, he prepares to crawl up; his hand touches the top; it is less than shoulder-high.

But perhaps the strongest illustration of the differing densities of these two media is furnished by an attempt to drive a nail under water. By an absolute law such an effort, if guided by sight independent of calculation, must fail. Habit and experience, tested in atmospheric light, will control the muscles, and direct the blow at the very point where the nail-head is not. For this reason the ingenious expedient of a voltaic lantern under water has proved to be impracticable. It is not the light alone which is wanted, but that sweet familiar atmosphere through which we are habituated to look. The submarine diver learns to rely wholly on the truer sense of touch, and guided by that he engages in tasks requiring labor and skill with the easy assurance of a blind man in the crowded street.

The conveyance of sound through the inelastic medium of water is so difficult that it has been called the world of silence. This is only comparatively true. The fish has an auditory cavity, which, though simple in itself, certifies the ordinary conviction of sound, but it is dull and imperfect; and perhaps all marine creatures have other means of communication. There is an instance, however, of musical sounds produced by marine animals, which seems to show an appreciation of harmony. In one of the lakes of Ceylon, Sir Emerson Tennent heard soft musical sounds, like the first faint notes of the aeolian harp or the faint vibrations of a wineglass when its rim is rubbed by a wet finger. This curious harmony is supposed to be produced by a species of testaceous mollusk. A similar intonation is heard at times along the Florida coast.

Interesting as this may be, as indicating an appreciation of that systematic order in arrangement which in music is harmony, it does not alter the fact that to the ears of the diver, save the cascade of the air through the life-hose, it is a sea of silence. No shout or spoken word reaches him. Even a cannon-shot comes to him dull and muffled, or if distant it is unheard. But a sharp, quick sound, that appears to break the air, like ice, into sharp radii, can be heard, especially if struck against anything on the water. The sound of driving a nail on the ship above, for example, or a sharp tap on the diving-bell below, is distinctly and reciprocally audible. Conversation below the surface by ordinary methods is out of the question, but it can be sustained by placing the metal helmets of the interlocutors together, thus providing a medium of conveyance.

The effort to clothe with intelligence subaqueous life must have been greatly strengthened among primitive nations by the musical sounds to which I have referred. Those mysterious breathings were associated with a human will, and gave forebodings from their very sweetness. Everywhere they are associated with a passionate or pathetic mystery, and the widely-spread area over which their island home is portrayed as existing strengthens the conclusion that the strange music of the sea belongs not to Ceylon or Florida or the Mediterranean alone. It affords us another instance, by that common enjoyment of sweet sounds, of the chain of sympathy between all intelligent creatures, and better prepares us for familiar acquaintance with the beings which people the sea. We have prejudices and preconceived ideas to get rid of, whose strength has crystallized into aphorisms. "Cold as a fish" and "fish-eyed" are ordinary expressions. Then the touch of a fish, cold, slippery, serpent-like, causes an involuntary shrinking.

But the submarine diver has a new revelation of piscine character and beauty, and perhaps can better understand the enticings of a siren or fantastic Lurlei than the classical scholar. In the flush of aureal light tinging their pearly glimmering armor are the radiant, graceful, frolicsome inhabitants of the sea. The glutinous or oily exudation that covers them is a brilliant varnish. Their lustrous colors, variety of crystalline tints and beautiful markings and spots, attract the eye of the artist even in the fish-market; but when glowing with full life, lively, nimble, playful, surely the most graceful living creatures of earth, air or sea, the soul must be blind indeed that can look upon them unmoved.

The dull optic seen glazing in the death-throes upon the market-stall, with coarse vulgar surroundings, becomes, in its native element, full of intelligence and light. In even the smaller fry the round orb glitters like a diamond star. One cannot see the fish without seeing its eye. It is positive, persistent, prevalent, the whole animate existence expressed in it. As far as the fish can be seen its eye is visible. The glimmer of scales, the grace of perfect motion, the rare golden pavilion with its jeweled floor and heavy violet curtains, complete a scene whose harmony of color, radiance and animal life is perfect. The minnow and sun-perch are the pages of the tourney on the cloth of gold. There is a fearless familiarity in these playful little things, a social, frank intimacy with their novel visitor, that astonishes while it pleases. They crowd about him, curiously touch him, and regard all his movements with a frank, lively interest. Nor are the larger fish shy. The sheeps-head, red and black groper, sea-trout and other, familiar fish of the sportsman, receive him with frank bonhommie or fearless curiosity. In their large round beautiful eyes the diver reads evidence of intelligence and curious wonder that sometimes startles him with its entirely human expression. There is a look of interest mixed with curiosity, leading to the irresistible conclusion of a kindred nature. No faithful hound or pet doe could express a franker interest in its eyes. Curiosity, which I take to be expressly destructive of the now-exploded theory of instinct, is expressed not only by the eye, but by the movements. As in man there is an eager passion to handle that which is novel, so these curious denizens of the sea are persistent in their efforts to touch the diver. An instance of this occurred, attended with disagreeable results to one of the parties, and that not the fish. The Eve of this investigation was a large catfish. These fish are the true rovers of the water. They have a large round black eye, full of intelligence and fire: their warlike spines and gaff-topsails give them the true buccaneer build. One of these, while the diver was engaged, incited by its fearless curiosity, slipped up and touched him with its cold nose. The man involuntarily threw back his hand, and the soft palm striking the sharp gaff, it was driven into the flesh. There was an instant's struggle before the fish wrenched itself loose from the bleeding member, and then it only swung off a little, staring with its bold black eyes at the intruder, as if it wished to stay for further question. It is hard to translate the expression of that look of curious wonder and surprise without appearing to exaggerate, but the impression produced was that if the fish did not speak to him, it was from no lack of intelligent emotions to be expressed in language.

A prolonged stay in one place gave a diver an opportunity to test this intelligence further, and to observe the trustful familiarity of this variety of marine life. He was continually surrounded at his work by a school of gropers, averaging a foot in length. An accident having identified one of them, he observed it was a daily visitor. After the first curiosity the gropers apparently settled into the belief that the novel monster was harmless and clumsy, but useful in assisting them to their food. The species feed on Crustacea and marine worms, which shelter under rocks, mosses and sunken objects at the sea-bottom. In raising anything out of the ooze a dozen of these fish would thrust their heads into the hollow for their food before the diver's hand was removed. They would follow him about, eyeing his motions, dashing in advance or around in sport, and evidently with a liking for their new-found friend. Pleased with such an unexpected familiarity, the man would bring them food and feed them from his hand, as one feeds a flock of chickens. The resemblance, in their familiarity and some of their ways, to poultry was, in fact, very striking. As a little chick will sometimes seize a large crumb and scurry off, followed by the flock, so a fish would sometimes snatch a morsel and fly, followed by the school. If he dropped it or stopped to enjoy his bonne bouche, his mates would be upon him. Sometimes two would get the same morsel, and there would be a trial of strength, accompanied with much flash and glitter of shining scales. But no matter how called off, their interest and curiosity remained with the diver. They would return, pushing their noses about him, caressingly in appearance if not intent, and bob into the treasures of worm and shell-fish his labor exposed. He became convinced that they were sportive, indulging in dash and play for the fun of it, rather than for any grosser object to be attained.

This curious intimacy was continued for weeks: the fish, unless driven away by some rover of prey of their kind, were in regular attendance during his hours of work. Perhaps the solitude and silence of that curious submarine world strengthened the impression of recognition and intimacy, but by every criterion we usually accept in terrestrial creation these little creatures had an interest and a friendly feeling for one who furnished them food, and who was always careful to avoid injuring them or giving them any unnecessary alarm. He could not, of course, take up a fish in his hand, any more than a chicken will submit to handling; but as to the comparative tameness of the two, the fish is more approachable than the chicken. That they knew and expected the diver at the usual hour was a conclusion impossible to deny, as also that they grew into familiarity with him, and were actuated by an intelligent recognition of his service to them. It would be hard to convince this gentleman that a school of fish cannot be as readily and completely tamed as a flock of chickens.

Why not? The fear of man is no instinctive feeling in the invertebrate creation. The pioneer who penetrates into the uninhabited wilds of our Western frontier finds bird and beast fearless and familiar. Man's cruelty is a lesson of experience. The timid and fearful of the lower creation belong to creatures of prey. The shark, for example, is as cowardly as the wolf.

I thought to speak of other marine creations with which the diver grows acquainted, finding in them only a repetition of the same degree of life he has seen in the upper world. But let it be enough to state the conclusion—as yet only an impression, and perhaps never to be more—that in marine existence there is to be found the counterpart always of some animate existence on earth, invertebrate or radiate, in corresponding animals or insects, between whose habits and modes of existence strong analogies are found. The shrimps that hang in clusters on your hand under the water are but winged insects of the air in another frame that have annoyed you on the land.

Let me dismiss the subject with the brief account of a diver caught in a trap.

In the passion of blind destruction that followed and attended the breaking out of hostilities between the North and the South, as a child breaks his rival's playthings, the barbarism of war destroyed the useful improvements of civilization. Among the things destroyed by this iconoclastic fury was the valuable dry-dock in Pensacola Bay. It was burned to the water's edge, and sunk. A company was subsequently organized to rescue the wreck, and in the course of the submarine labor occurred the incident to which I refer.

The dry-dock was built in compartments, to ensure it against sinking, but the ingenuity which was to keep it above water now served effectually to keep it down. Each one of these small water-tight compartments held the vessel fast to the bottom, as Gulliver was bound by innumerable threads to the ground of Lilliput. It was necessary to break severally into the lower side of each of these chambers, and allow the water to flow evenly in all. The interior of the hull was checkered by these boxes. Huge beams and cross-ties intersected each other at right angles, forming the frame for this honeycombed interior, pigeon-holed like a merchant's desk. It was necessary to tear off the skin and penetrate from one to the other in order to effect this.

It was a difficult and tedious job under water. The net of intersecting beams lay so close together that the passage between was exceedingly narrow and compressed, barely admitting the diver's body. The pens, so framed by intersecting beams, were narrowed and straitened, embarrassing attempts at labor in them, which the cold, slippery, serpent-like touch of the sea-water was not likely to make pleasanter. It folded the shuddering body in its coils, and a most ancient and fish-like smell did not improve the situation. The toil was multiplied by the innumerable pigeon-holes, as if they fitted into one another like a Chinese puzzle, with the unlucky diver in the middle box. It was a nightmare of the sea, the furniture of a dream solidified in woody fibre.

Into one of these crowding holes the diver crawled. There was the tedious work of tearing off the casing to occupy an hour or more, and when it was accomplished he endeavored to back out of his situation. He was stopped fast and tight in his regression. The arrangement of the armor about the head and shoulders, making a cone whose apex was the helmet, prevented his exit. It was like the barb of a harpoon, and caught him fast in the wood. Such a danger is not sudden in its revelation. There is at first only a feeling of impatience at the embarrassment, a disposition to "tear things." In vain attempts at doubling and other gymnastic feats the diver wasted several hours, until his companions above became alarmed at the delay. They renewed and increased their labors at the force-pump, and the impetuous torrent came surging about the diver's ears. It served to complete his danger. It sprung the trap in which he lay enclosed. The inflated armor swelled and filled up the crowded spaces. It stiffened out the casing of the helmet to equal the burden of fifty pounds to the square inch, and made it as hard as iron. He was caught like the gluttonous fox. The bulky volume of included air made exit impossible. It was no longer a labyrinth as before, where freedom of motion incited courage: he was in the fetters of wind and water, bound fast to the floor of his dungeon den. He signaled for the pump to stop. It was the only alternative. He might die without that life-giving air, but he would certainly die if its volume was not reduced. The cock at the back of the helmet for discharging the vessel was out of his reach. The invention never contemplated a case in which the diver would perish from the presence of air.

As the armor worn was made tight at the sleeves with elastic wristbands, his remedy was to insert his fingers under it, and slowly and tediously allow the bubbling air to escape. In this he persevered steadily, encouraged by the prospect of escape. The way was long and difficult, but release certain with the reduction of that huge bulk.

But a new and subtler danger attacked him—the very wit of Nature brought to bear upon his force and ingenuity. It was as if the mysterious sirens of the sea saw in that intellectual force the real strength of their prisoner, and sought to steal it from him while they lulled him to indifference. Inhaling and reinhaling the reduced volume of air, it became carbonized and foul, not with the warning of sudden oppression, but

Sly as April melts to May,
And May slips into June.

The senses, intoxicated by the new companion sent them by the lungs, began to sport with it, as ignorant children with a loaded shell, forgetful of duty and the critical condition of the man. They began to wander in vagaries and delusions. A soft chime of distant bells rang in his ears with the sweet sleepy service of a Sabbath afternoon; the sound of hymns and the organ mingled with the melody and the chant of the sirens of the sea.

There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dew on still waters, between walls
Of shadowy granite in a gleaming pass—
Music that gentler on the spirit lies
Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes.
Here are cool mosses deep,
And through the moss the ivies creep,
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.

The sensuous beauty, the infinite luxury of repose sung by the poet, filled and steeped his senses. The desire to sleep was intoxicating, delicious, irresistible; and with it ran delicious, restful thrills through all his limbs, the narcotism of the blood. It was partly, no doubt, the effect of inhaling that pernicious air; partly that hibernation of the bear which in the freezing man precedes dissolution; and possibly more than that, something more than any mere physical cause—life perhaps preparing to lay this tired body down, its future usefulness destroyed.

This delicious enervation had to be constantly resisted and dominated by a superior will. One more strenuous effort to relieve that straitened garrison, to release that imprisoned and fettered body, and then, if that failed, an unconditional surrender to the armies of eternal steep. But it did not fail. That constant, persevering tugging of the fingers at the wristbands, pursued mechanically in that strange condition of pleasing stupor, had reduced the exaggerated distensions of the bulbous head-gear. A stout, energetic push set the diver free, and he was drawn to the surface dazed, drowsy, and only half conscious of the peril undergone. But with the rush of fresh, untainted air to the lungs came an emotion of gratitude to the Giver of life and the full consciousness of escape.

And this sums up my sketch illustrative of the peculiar character of marine life, and the hazards of submarine adventure, hitherto known to few, for—well, for divers reasons.

    WILL WALLACE HARNEY.

CONFIDENTIAL

My ear has ever been considered public property for private usage. I cannot call to mind the time when I was not somebody's confidante, the business beginning as far back as the winter I ran down to Aunt Rally's to receive my birthday-party of sweet or bitter sixteen, as will appear.

Ralph Romer was the first to spread the news of my arrival in the village among the girls of my own age. Ralph Romer it was who had braved the dangers of "brier and brake" to find the bright holly berries with which Aunt Hally had decorated the cheery little parlor for the occasion; and it was with Ralph Romer I danced the oftenest on that famous night.

"Wouldn't I just step out on the porch a short little minute," he whispered as he came around in the rear of Aunt Hally to bid me good-night, ending the whisper, according to the style of all boy-lovers, "I've got something to tell you."

The door stood open and conveniently near, and I suppose I wanted to see how high the snow had drifted since dark; and, a better reason still, I couldn't afford to let Ralph take my hand off with him; and so I had to go out on the porch just long enough to get it back, while he said: "Ettie Moore says she loves me, and we are going to correspond when I go back to college; and as you know all lovers and their sweethearts must have a confidante to smuggle letters and valentines across the lines, we have both chosen you for ours. Oh, I was so afraid you wouldn't come!"

I found the snow had drifted–well, I don't believe I knew how many inches.

I have not promised a recital of all my auricular experiences. Enough to say, that in time I settled down into the conviction that it was my special mission to be the receptacle of other people's secrets; and they seemed determined to convince me that they thought so too.

So, when Mr. Tennent Tremont happened along and became a candidate for auricular favors, like a tradesman who has gained the self-sustaining ground which has made him indifferent as to custom-seeking, I could afford to be entirely independent about giving a previous promise to keep his secrets for him; and so, dear reader, they are as much yours as mine.

When my brother introduced him into our family circle we took him to be a Northern college-chum, met with during his just-returned-from-trip to Washington; for it was in those days when Southern hospitality was as much appreciated as it was liberally bestowed. It was a good time for a modest stranger to come among new faces. We were in the flutter and bustle which a wedding in the family makes, and it gave him an opportunity to get used to us, and left us none to observe him unpleasantly much.

But when the wedding was over, and I had made up my week of lost sleep, and he and my brother had kept themselves out of the way on a camp-hunt, for my mother to do up her week of house-cleaning,—it is here that our story proper begins.

As we were leaving the breakfast-table one morning my brother caught my dress-sleeve, and, dropping in the rear of Mr. Tennent Tremont, allowed him to find the verandah: "Really, sis, I don't think you are doing the clever thing, quite."