h the necessary machinery,
to tell the truth. I never explored the bottom of a river in this way,
and I think it will be a long time before I make such a voyage.

The diving bell has been used for a good many useful purposes--to lay
the foundations of docks and the piers of bridges; to collect pearls
at Ceylon, and coral at other places.

I am not sure but the diving bell is getting somewhat out of use now.
People have found out another way of groping along on the bottom of
rivers and seas. They do it frequently, I believe, by means of a kind
of armor made of India rubber. But so far as my book is concerned, it
is of no consequence whether the diving bell is out of use or not. I
shall use the title, at all events.

If, after my account of the diving bell, you still ask why I choose
to give such a name to the budget I have prepared for you, I can
answer your question very easily.

I think you will find something worth looking at in the budget--not
pearls, or pieces of coral, or lost treasures, exactly, but still
something which will please you, and something which, when you get
hold of it, will be worth keeping and laying up in some snug corner of
your memory box. I say _when you get hold of it_; for the valuable
things I have for you do not all lie on the surface. You will have to
_search_ for them a little. That is, you will have to think. When you
have read one of my stories, or fables, you may find it necessary to
stop, and ask yourself "What does Uncle Frank mean by all this?" In
other words, you will have to use the diving bell, and see if you
can't hunt up something in the story or the fable, which will be
useful to you, and which will make you wiser and better. Now you see
why I have called my book _The Diving Bell_, don't you?

II.

THINKING AND LAUGHING.

It is Uncle Frank's notion, that it is a good thing to laugh, but a
better thing to think. A great many people, however, old as well as
young, and young as well as old, live and die without thinking much.
They lose three quarters of the benefit they ought to get from
reading, and from what they see and learn as they go through the
world, by never diving below the surface of things. I don't suppose
it is so with you. I hope not, at all events. If it is so, then you
had better shut up this book, and pass it over to some young friend of
yours, who has learned to think, and who loves to read books that will
help him about thinking. No, on the whol