rises buoyantly. The idea is beautifully
simple, and would be perfectly novel if similar
contrivances had not been observable in the
structure of certain marine animals. Human
ingenuity sometimes has the good fortune to
hit upon means similar to those employed by
the Great Author of Nature; and is then
most sure, as well as most successful.

The descent of the Auguste, on the other
hand, is effected by a laborious injection of
water into the reservoirs of compressed air;
and, of course, the greater the store of breathable
provision, the harder work it is to cram
and force upon it so unyielding an intruder as
water is—the least squeezeable of things.
The air does yield at last to the impudent
invasion, but with a very bad grace, and after
proving itself to be somewhat heated by the
contest. Moreover, for convenience sake, a
greater excess of floating power is usually
maintained at the surface, when the Auguste
lies at her moorings, than of sinking power at
the bottom, when she wants to lie steady at
her work.

It is good, for the safety of the crew, that
this should be the case; namely, that it
should be less trouble to float the Bateau
Plongeur than to sink her. But Dr. Payerne
has superadded a very beautiful and simple
contrivance, by which, if the pumps should
fail to perform their duty, the Bateau can, by
a few touches, be instantly brought to the
surface. It is a proof too, how little complex
the whole management of the machinery is,
that the workmen who dive conduct it with
perfect confidence, and, Dr. Payerne says, quite
as well as himself.

We left the men at the bottom of the sea.
The master had returned to his scientific
labours, and I had gone home to put on paper
something of what I had seen and heard.
Having been present at the imprisonment of
the nine martyrs, I was anxious to assist, as
the French say, at their escape. They went
down at nine in the morning (or a little after,
for my visit caused a short delay), and they
were to emerge about one in the afternoon.
I returned at the time appointed, and was
just too late to see the Auguste rise, like a
Venus with the scarlet fever, from the sea;
but the living cargo was untouched and
unadulterated: the tenth man was beginning to
untackle the trap-door and clear the ropes
from the pulley and gibbet. At last the hole
opened [it just comes into my head that it is
very like the hole in a humming-top, which
admits the wind, and causes the music; or
still more like the enlarged bung-hole of a
cask], and one by one they lifted themselves
out. There was no struggling or fighting
who should get away first, as must have been
the case had they been pent up for four
hours in a real and true black hole of
Calcutta; the exit was made quietly, and
even a little lazily. The first word which I
heard from their mouths, was not " Thank
God, here we are, above water again! " nor
"Catch me at the bottom another time, if you
can! " but the foreman, turning towards the
dock-wall on which we were standing, asked,
" Sommes nous bien descendus? " "Did we
make a good descent? " Think of the fellow's
coolness in caring about the style of the
performance! I almost believe that he purposely
made the last plunge a little more
precipitately than usual, simply to show what a
high-mettled Triton his Auguste could be on
occasion.

The other men toddled off to their dressing-
room, not a bit more beaten than miners
whom I have seen returning from their work.
To say that they were as cool as cucumbers
and as neat as if they came out of a band-box,
would not be true. But, they were to get a
hasty snack of dinner, and go down again in
the afternoon. The air reservoirs contained
sufficient for that day's consumption, without
any more being pumped into them.  Next
morning, a fresh stock would have to be laid
in.  Eight hours, divided into two spells,
is the usual day's work at the bottom of the
sea; but, sometimes, when the boat drops
nicely, in a convenient position, a shorter stay
enables them to satisfy themselves and others
as to the quantity of rock removed. The
fragments detached are brought up in the
Diving Boat.

These things are only the beginnings of
wonders. What Dr. Payerne longs for, is
additional mechanical power to work his
invention, which he feels certain of gaining
when he has obtained additional capital.  He
proposes to make a submarine steamboat,
which, however the reader may stare, is as
actual a possibility as the Auguste is an
existing fact. But, expense is the present
stumbling block; experiments cannot be
made for nothing.

The submarine steamer would have two
fires: one for the surface, and another for the
deeps. Up above, it would burn air; but air
is too valuable to burn in the abyss below.
Heat must there be generated by means of
nitrate of potash, though the process is much
more costly.

The first descent was made in the Seine
at Paris; and it showed the confidence
which the inventor placed in his apparatus.
Inclosed in an iron cage at the bottom of a
river, he could not have been very easily
raised to the surface either dead or alive, if
the effect calculated on had not been produced
by the means employed. But, a trial in the
sea at the time of high water, and at a point
above low water-mark, would have insured
him some sort of succour in case of need,
if he patiently waited in his den for three
or four hours, and had only air enough to
breathe.

The greatest depth to which Dr. Payerne
has yet descended, is seventy-five French feet
—a trifle more than English.  But, many
valuable cargoes lie sunken deeper than that,
and are well worth the fetching up again.