CHILDREN'S COLUMN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11780, 9 October 1901, Page 3

CHILDREN'S COLUMN.

THE LOST VOICE. [by F. 11. SPEARMAN.] It was neither pearls nor treasure-trove that tempted me, but that which sends men to freeze under the Arctic sun, to burn in African jungles, to starve on Siberian wastes—the love of science. To add to the sum of the world's knowledge; to make life endurable where before existence only was possible, to strive without certainty of reward; to brave death under a thousand terrors—these are the endeavours and these the hazards of the scientist. When Morley incredulously asserted it could not be done I contended as stoutly that it could.

" Only give me three months, Professor Dale," 1 urgedfor I could talk then, like other men; now I can only whisper, and that with much difficulty—" only give me time enough to construct my armour. I will descend not only five hundred feet, but twice five hundred."

" Descend you may," put in Morley, " but you'll never come up again." "There you are wrong, my dear Morley," observed the professor, reflectively. " The real difficulty is to get down. Once down, the question" of pulling him up is comparatively simple" " You mean dead or alive," I suggested, facetiously. "Quite right," assented the professor; "that is just what I mean— or alive." " But will you let me try it, professor?" I pleaded, as the three of us left the restaurant and started towards the institution.

" I am curious to see what sort of a suit you will contrive for the purpose," mused the professor, gently sniffing a new material wonder, like the enthusiastic old scientific dog that he was. "We sail.in three months. If you can get your apparatus in shape by that time we will take it along, anyway. I shall have to limit you to about a thousand dollars for getting it up—you know our entire appropriation is not over large," said Professor Dale, reverting to the business end of the proposal. "But, Frederic," ho continued, relapsing into one of his gentle rhapsodies, as he gazed mildly at the big white dome of the Capitol ahead, " if you succeed your mime will outlast old Smithson's itself. A thousand feet," he mused, greedily— most men would muse over a " million dollars"—" a thousand feet. I would rather be the man to walk on the ocean-bed a thousand feet below than be President of these glorious United States." It was a way that the old gentleman had ■ — way by which he fired us and set us wild to embark in any desperate enterpriso which promised fame. When he spoke I thought as he did. And now? Well don't know; but I have at least this consolation —there are, as you know, sevei'al Presidents of the United States alive—ex-Presidents of. course; but there is only one man who has counted a thousand feet of sea water above his head and I am that man.

Morley said I never would live to tell the tale; and he was right— never did. But I can hold a pen as well as the next, and so may write the tale I cannot tell.

Morley and I were attaches of the Smithsonian Institution. Professor Dale was the head of our division. No wonder we were enthusiasts. We counted our institution the most glorious on earth. Any one of of the scores of yovmg men who laboured in it would have held his life cheap if by giving it up the name of the Smithsonian might shine brighter in science's domain. Morlevj, my chum, a New York boyhe was really no —was as deeply imbued with this loyalty as anybody. He had, indeed, only one passion besides his love for reptilia— was for bananas; harmless enough in itself, yet of singularly unhappy consequence to me, as you shall see. Morley, I am persuaded, would have laid down his life for the Smithsonian. Yet had he been obliged to choose between abandoning the institution or giving up bananas I fear we should have lost a valuable scientist.

Tho Government had just placed at our disposal a man-of-warthe Gladiator an expedition to the South Sea Islands. Incidentally Professor Dale, detailed in charge, was desirous of investigating deep-sea life in the Pacific, least known and noblest of our oceans. It was in this research that I proposed to aid him by an undertaking so extraordinary that many there were who looked on me as no less than a madman to attempt it. But when did scepticism or ridicule ever deter the true disciple of science?

I believed that I could construct a divingsuit—an armour, in factwhich would enable me to descend to depths of the ocean never before penetrated by man, and thus obtain specimens of organic life hitherto unknown to science. The idea was bold, yet the ablest men whom I consulted did not condemn it as preposterous, as my correspondence still shows; and when Professor Dale gave me leave I went to work vigorously to make read}- for the. venture. The time was short, and my first efforts discouraging. I consulted every builder of diving-suits in the country; but when I told them I required an armour to sustain the terrific pressure of the sea at. the depth of a thousand feet they threw up their hands. In the end I was compelled to construct it myself, and in this endeavour I certainly made marked advances on anything previously attained in the line of diving-suits. One thing alone gave, me serious trouble the glass bull's-eye for my helmet. I spent nearly a month of my precious three in Pittsburg working on bull's-eyes. " I must have a glass," I said, " which will withstand the pressure of twenty atmospheres." One glassmaker alone would talk to me. " I can make it," he said, quietly, " if you can test it."

"Then go ahead." " First convince me that you can test it," he rejoined. " How will you do it?" "With a. sledge-hammer." He paused a moment, but he saw the force of the suggestion; the trial began. For four weeks skilled workmen turned out lenses of unheard-of strength and tenacity. One after another they were shivered into pieces under my sledge. But stoutly persevering', they made at last a lens which even the blow of an eight-pound hammer could not fracture. In twenty-four hours I was ready, and none too soon. That very night, slipping her anchor, the Gladiator steamed down the Potomac for her long cruise.

A good while before we reached our distant destination I had perfected the details of my descent. Every day I went over the points with Professor Dale and my fellowworker Morley. Into his hands I proposed to commit entire charge of the arrangements for my safety while under the sea. Professor Dale and Morley, it is true, werejinterested in many things; lin but one. A successful descent in my steel and glass shell would revolutionise deep-sea diving. The risk, indeed, was tremendous, but the incentive inspiring.

So thoroughly had I gone over my plans that by the time we rounded the Horn I was not only confident of success but impatient for the fateful day to arrive. The whole crew were interested in my undertaking. What they couldn't understand was, why I was willing to court so strange a death merely to secure a bucketful of ooze from the bottom of the sea. Ooze, it is true—but such ooze! Ooze which the eye of men had never yet seem in appreciable quantities. Oooze teeming with a million forms of life which no microscope had ever yet revealed, which no scientist had ever yet described. The game was appalling, but the stake dazzling.

Toward the end even Morley became infected.

" Hanged if I don't wish I was going down myself," he admitted, when at last the day came.

We lay off the coast of one of the countless smaller islands of the Navigator Group. That morning the sea lay outspread like a vast mirror. The sun had barely peeped over the cocoa-nut trees to the east of us when I gave Morley my last instructions, bade everybody pood-bye, and stepped into my armour. On the main deck the captain had rigged up a pony-engine to supply my air-pump; a small dynamo was belted to it to provide me with light. Mbrley had charge of the engine; my last words were to him : —

" If you ever expect to see me alive again, ni\y dear Morley. watch the air-supply. I'm ready ; close the slide; tell the boys not to pay out too fastnot over a foot a second. Good-bye." I felt the jerk of th tackl as I was swung over the rail, and perceived almost instantly by the fading of the light that I was descending into the- sea. I turned on

the electric bulb, and realised that I was an awe-inspiring intruder into the submarine world. Strange fishes, reptiles of hideous proportions, and monsters of horrid shape stared in vague and awful silence at me as I gradually sank below them. A colossal shark rubbed fondly against my bull's-eye, as if he fain would knew more of the kernel of this strange shell. But I gave the bravo little heed; if he nipped at me he would have aching jaws to nurse for his pains ; my armour bristled with sterd spikes. I was fast descending to deeps where no shark could live, because of the mere pressure of the sea. By the watch which hung suspended in front of my eyes five minutes had passed since the water closed over me. I estimated that I was aires' 300 ft down —a third deeper than diver had ever before penetrated. Our previous soundings at this point— chosen with reference to them —had indicated bottom at 170 fathoms. The enormous pressure of 1101b to the square inch on the tiny gauge at my eye-piece caused me to realise for the first time the frightful dangers of my position. For an awful instant I would have given the world and my dearest hopes for a sight of the sun once moremuch 1 doubted I should ever again behold it.

Fish and reptile and monster were now far above me. Better than man has ever known I then knew the stillness of ocean depths. In tliei silence which oppressed me ghastly creatures — horrible to live and yet living in this scene of disead—moved sluggishly in their gruesome haunts, heedless of my presence. To my deceiving senses it seemed as if this company of misshapen monsters were ever rising out of a bottomless pit before my startled eyes. It was as if I hung motionless in the midst of an endless procession of horrors. But the deadly pressure on the gauge pushed the pointer higher on the dial. My watch, tripping now like a steam-hammer, instead of ticking gently its accustomed music, warned me that five minutes more had passed. I must now be, I calculated, 600 ft below the ocean level.

All at once the sluggish objects about me ceased to rise—in other words, I had ceased to descend. Something had gone wrong above : a sweat clewed my forehead. Carefully I breathed the precious air. fearful of a present stoppage. Narrowly I watched the pressure-gauge; the pointer quivered stationary on the dial.

Mechanically my eyes turned to the watch. How long was it. to last? A minute passed; then, to my infinite relief, my grisly companions began once more to rise; I was sinking. With that certainty all nervousness left. I was now so far below the possibility of human help that peril became to ine a matter of indifference. The springing of a single rivet meant instant death; even to that I had grown resigned. One wish, one hope, one resolve, animated me now to get to the bottom; to fill my steel bucket; to signal an ascent. After thatwell, I asked no further.

Of a sudden I was seized with an uncontrollable curiosity to see and know more of what was now around me. My electric bulb threw a hazy light through a radius close about me, but it faded into a darkness which now became a mystical Tantalus to my disordered nerves. Five minutes more passed ; still I breathedbut 900 ft below the keel of the Gladiator. I hung in the midst of a slime which I could almost feel through my metal coat. Millions of tiny forms of marine life, jellylike, impalpable, still rose above me. I looked at the pressure-gauge; the pointer stuck fast at the limit—3oolb to the square inch; but even this made no impression on me. By the comparative slowness of my descent I knew I must- be Hearing bottom. So enormous was the pressure that it practically held my immense casing of steel in suspension. I floated on the tremendous strength of twenty atmospheres. I stuck immovable in ooze. Was I at the mottom? I could not tell. But bottom or not, I well knew that the time had come to act. The automatic device on the big metal bucket at my feet needed only the pressure of a lever to close it, and with the movement I knew that my treasure of slime and ooze was secure. I was beset with a desire to scream in triumph. But who was there to hear? Again, as childish impulse shifts, I became suddenly frantic ta leap with a single bound into air and sunshine. I tore open the electric circuit— it was my signal to Morley to life me then I waited. I waited; but now in the darkness. In signalling I had destroyed the light above my head. It is a serious thing to make a mistake in daylight, but infinitely more awful to make one in the midst of darkness. I no longer had the means of determining whether I was rising or whether I hung motionless. My watch, ticking like a firebell in the blackness of my prison, only served to heighten the disorder of my faculties. Times I felt sure I was movingstrained my ears to catch a sound from without; times again I felt I must be hanging motionless in my living tomb. And was it now my imaginationwas my reason going —or was the air about me becoming foul and breathing difficult? My senses wavered; a prayer died on my lips. My brain seemed to expand with the pressure of an exquisite torture. I choked with a nameless fright; I strove with a madman's fury to burst the steel casing which alone protected me from instant death — craved it now; death only it came dreamless and quick. My fury spent itself in useless raging; I had builded too well. But with my declining strength my torture increased. My ear-drums were being irresistibly pushed into my head; my eyes were oppressed with crushing weights; my tongue swelled in my throat; once filled, I could no longer expel the air from my lungs ; they seemed distended to bursting. I realised that it was death creeping slowly over me, and with the dumb agony of fading consciousness I beat at the heavy bull's-eye with uncurtain blows. A consuming thirst devoured me; I bloated with a. parching drouth ; my head sank in the stagnation of coma. In a frenzy I strove once more to wrench open the helmet; something burst with a terrific shock; I felt water pouring onto my throat. The welcome flood had come, the sickening pain had gone, and with it went consciousness and life.

Can you imagine what bad happened? Guess a thousand times, and I think you still would miss it.

I have put the question to a thousand boys, and now I put it to hundreds of thousands; but none will ever guess. What really happened was so trivial, and yet so fatal in its consequences, that it seems a burlesque to explain it.

Morley, I have told you, had charge of the. pony-engine which operated my airpump on deck./ Just at the moment my cable cea-sed to pay a.nd they knew I had reached bottom terrific yells were heard under the stern of the Gladiator.

While all hands, eveu to the look-out, were tintjently watching the progress of affairs on deck, a dozen canoes of savages paddling out from shore, unobserved, had run directly under our stern, where they set up an unearthly cry. Instantly the deck was a scene of confusion; the drummer beat the call to arms; the marines sprang forward to repel boarders. Then it transpired as suddenly that the assault was entirely a peaceful one, and that,, far from meditating hostilities, the natives had brought out a supply of bananas to barter for tobacco and trinkets.

Unhappily, as I have intimated, Morley had a weakness for bananas. During the first panic he did not lose his head; he stuck faithfully to his post. But the minute the second cry was raised Morley, intent on securing a desirable bunch (for us to eat between us, as he sobbed to me long afterwards), rushed aft to make arrangements for securing the pick of the cargo. That brief interval of absence cost me all the torture I have described, and more. When he hastened back to his post the airgauge on my supply-hose indicated the awful pressure of —almost two atmospheres. Morley, sure I was done for, fell down like a dead man. In feverish haste they raised me, and then came the crowning misfortune. In disengaging the heavy bucket of ooze while 1 swung above the rail a lubberly marine unluckily dropped it overboard. Professor Dale screamed; it was too late. The fruit of my tremendous endeavour sank like a plumb-bob before his eyes, and still rests in the depths cf the sea. I

Meantime my comrades were working at me. My armour proved to Be absolutely intact. They succeeded at length in smashing my visor. I must have been a spectacle, for they were greatly frightened. It was a long time before the combined efforts of the entire ship's company of surgeons were successful in restoring me to life. For an unknown interval I had sus-

rained an atmospheric pressure so great that at last my windpipe had burst under it. It was as if they had sought to inflate me as one does a toy balloon. The effusion of blood after the rupture of my trachea had seemed like water rushing into my throat. Sine* that day I have never been able to speak a loud word. Thanks to careful surgery I can whisper, but the power to speak is gone. Ever since then Morley has endeavoured to atone for his one moment of thoughtlessness by unremitting devotion to me; but the sight of a bunch of bananas even now throws me into a cold sweat. Again I am shrouded in the gloom of the ocean depths; again I suffocate , with an excess of air; in imagination the pains of strangulation overpower me, and I turn to Morley in a faint. Professor Dale still bemoans the irreparable loss of the ooze; but personally I have never felt any uncontrollable desire to go down after another sample.—Harper's Round Table.