submarine armor is the true way to visit the world
under water. The first sensation in descending is the sudden bursting
roar of furious, Niagarac cascades in the ears. It thunders and booms
upon the startled nerve with the rush and storm of an avalanche. The
sense quivers with it. But it is not air shaken by reflected blows: it
is the cascades driven into the enclosing helmet by the force-pump.
As the flexile hose has to be stiffly distended to bear an aqueous
gravity of twenty-five to fifty pounds to the square inch, the force
of the current can be estimated. The tympanum of the ear yields to
the fierce external pressure. The brain feels and multiplies the
intolerable tension as if the interior was clamped in a vice, and
that tumultuous, thunderous torrent pours on. Involuntarily the mouth
opens: the air rushes in the Eustachian tube, and with sudden velocity
strikes the intruded tension of the drum, which snaps back to its
normal state with a sharp, pistol-like crack. The strain is momently
relieved to be renewed again, and again relieved by the same attending
salutes.

In your curious dress you must appear monstrous, even to that marine
world, familiar with abnormal creations. The whale looks from eyes on
the top of his head; the flat-fish, sole, halibut have both eyes on
the same side; and certain Crustacea place the organ on a foot-stalk,
as if one were to hold up his eye in his hand to include a wider
horizon. But the monster which the fish now sees differs from all
these. It has four great goggle eyes arranged symmetrically around
its head. Peering through these plate-glass optics, the diver sees
the curious, strange beauty of the world around him, not as the bather
sees it, blurred and indistinct, but in the calm splendor of its own
thallassphere. The first thought is one of unspeakable admiration of
the miraculous beauty of everything around him--a glory and a splendor
of refraction, interference and reflection that puts to shame the
Arabian story of the kingdom of the Blue Fish. Above him is that pure
golden canopy with its rare glimmering lustrousness--something like
the soft, dewy effulgence that comes with sun-breaks through showery
afternoons. The soft delicacy of that pure straw-yellow that prevails
everywhere is crossed and lighted by tints and glimmering hues of
accidental and complementary color indescribably elegant. The floor of
the sea rises like a golden carpet in gentle incline to the surface;