sh.

After setting down a categorical description of the successive
partings of the electric light cable and the hoist cable, and his
thoughts and feelings in that connection, he described in detail the
shark with hands, which he had seen through the window of his sphere.
He tried to be very explicit about this, for he realized that his
account would probably be laid, by everyone, to the disordered
imagination of his last dying moments; being a true scientist, George
Abbot wanted the world to believe him, so that another sphere would be
built and sent down to the ocean depths, to find out more about these
peculiar denizens of the deep.

Of course, no one would believe him. This thought kept drumming in his
ears. No one--except Professor Osborne. Old Osborne would believe!

George Abbot's mind flashed back to a conversation he had had with the
old professor, just before the oil interests had sent him on this
exploring trip to discover the source of the large quantities of
petroleum which had begun to bubble up from the bottom of a certain
section of the Pacific very near where Abbot now was.

* * * * *

Osborne had said, "This petroleum suggests a gusher to me. And what
causes gushers? Human beings, boring for oil, to satisfy human needs."

"But, Professor," Abbot had objected, "there can't be any human beings
at the bottom of the sea!"

"Why not?" Professor Osborne had countered. "Life is supposed to have
originated spontaneously in the slime of the ocean depths; therefore
that part of the earth has had a head-start on us in the game of
evolution. May not this head-start have been maintained right down to
date, thus producing at the bottom of the sea a race superior to
anything upon the dry land?"

"But," Abbot had objected further, "if so, why haven't they come up to
visit or conquer us? And why haven't we ever found any trace of them?"

"Quite simple to explain," the old professor had replied. "Any
creature who can live at the frightful pressures of the ocean depths
could never survive a journey even halfway to the surface. It would be
like our trying to live in an almost perfect vacuum. We should
explode, and so would these denizens of the deep, if they tried to
come up here. Even one of their dead bodies could not be brought to
the surface in recognizable form. No contact with them will ever be
possible, nor will they ever constitute a menace to any one--for which
we may tha