to diving is Homer, who is supposed
to have lived somewhere about a thousand years before the Christian era,
and he refers to it not as a novelty but in an off-hand way that proves
it to have been at that time a well-known art, practised for the purpose
of obtaining oysters. Then we find Aeschylus comparing mental vision to
the strong natural eye of the "deep diver." But Thucydides speaks more
definitely of divers having been employed at the siege of Syracuse to
cut down barriers which had been constructed below water; to damage the
Grecian vessels while attempting to enter the harbour, and, generally,
to go under and injure the enemy's ships. All this inclines us to think
they must at that time have learned to supplement their natural powers
with artificial.

Livy mentions the fact that the ancients employed divers for the purpose
of recovering property from the sea. The Rhodians had a law fixing the
share of the recovered treasure which was due to the divers who saved
it. According to this law the remuneration was in proportion to the
depth from which it was brought up, and the risk incurred. But as these
divers considered four fathoms or thereabouts an extreme and dangerous
depth, it is probable that they did their work in the natural way
without the aid of apparatus.

For the benefit of the credulous we may mention several statements which
have been more or less received. The Dutch were once celebrated divers,
and it is reported that some of them have remained under water more than
an hour! From this report some have argued that these Dutchmen must
have possessed artificial means of maintaining life below water. To
this we reply, if that were so, is it likely that the reporter who made
reference to the length of time spent below water was ignorant as to the
means--if any--by which this apparent miracle was accomplished? And if
he was not ignorant, would he have passed over such means in silence?
The idea is absurd. The probability is rather that the reporter had
been gulled, or was fond of drawing the "long bow."

Again, mention is made by one Mersennius of a man who could remain six
hours under water! If Mersennius were in a position to become
acquainted with that diver's powers, how comes it that he failed to
become acquainted with his apparatus? Simply because there was no such
apparatus, and the whole affair is a fable.

But the most remarkable of these stories is recorded by a certain Father
K