These under-water craft are only a part of the equipment that Bernard Meeker, a young Englishman, has provided to help him in his search for the lost city.  There are divers’ uniforms specially strengthened to resist the great pressure under which the men must work.  Huge electric lamps like searchlights to be lowered into the ocean depths and give light to the workers are stacked close beside powerful generators in the ship’s hold.  In the chart room there are rolls of strange maps plotting out the ocean floor, and on a shelf by itself rests the tangible evidence that this search means gold.  It is a little bowl of strange design which was brought up by a diver from the bottom of the Caribbean.  When this bowl first came to light it was supposed to be part of loot from a sunken Spanish galleon, but antiquarians could find nothing in the art of the Orient, or Africa, or of Peru and Mexico to bear out this theory.  Even the gold of which it was made was an alloy of a different type from anything on record.

It was this that gave Meeker his first idea that there was a city under the sea.  He found out the exact spot from which the divers had recovered the bowl, and compared the reckonings with all the ancient charts which spoke of the location of fabled Atlantis.  In one old book he located the lost city as being close to the spot where the divers had been, and with this as a foundation for his theories he asked other questions of the men who had explored that hidden country.  Their tale only confirmed his belief.

“The floor of the sea is covered with unusual coral formation,” one of them told him, “but it was the queerest coral I ever saw.  It looked more like stone walls and there was a pointed sort of arch which was different from any coral arch I had ever seen.”

That was enough to take Meeker to the Caribbean to see for himself.  He won’t tell what he found, beyond the fact that he satisfied himself that the “coral” was really stone walls pierced by arched doors and windows.

Meeker kept all his plans secret and might have sailed away on his treasure hunt without making any stir if he had not been careless enough to name one of his submarines “Atlantis.”  He had given out that he was sailing for Yucatan to search for evidence of prehistoric civilization.  It is true that the shores of Yucatan are covered with the remnants of great cities but the word “Atlantis” awoke suspicion.  Questions followed and Meeker had to admit the bare facts of his secret.

“Only half a dozen men know the supposed location of Atlantis,” he said, just before sailing, “and we don’t intend to let any others into the secret.  Those who have furnished the money for the expedition have done so in the hope of solving the mystery of the lost continent, and without thought for the profit.  The divers and the other men of the crew have the wildest dreams of finding hoarded wealth.  It is not at all impossible that their dreams will come true, and that they will be richly rewarded.  At any rate they deserve it, for the work will be dangerous.