“Our plans are simple enough.  With the submarine of the usual type we will first explore that part of the sea bottom which our charts cover.  This vessel has in its conning tower a powerful searchlight which will reveal at least the upper portions of any buildings that may be there.  For work in greater depths we will have to depend on the ‘Atlantis’ with its special equipment of ballast tanks and its hatch-ways for the divers.

“You see, we do not plan to lower the divers from the steamer or from a raft.  Instead they will step directly out on the sea floor from a door in the submarine which opens out of an air chamber.  In this the diver can be closed and the air pressure increased until it is high enough to keep out the water.  All that he has to do then is to open the door and step out, trailing behind him a much shorter air hose and life line than would hamper him if he worked from the surface.  The air hose is armored with steel links so that there will be no danger of an inquisitive shark chopping it in two.”

Previous to the diver’s exploration the claws of the “Atlantis” will search out the more promising places in the ruins.  These claws work on a joint operated electrically, and on the tip of each is a sensitive electrical apparatus which sets off a signal in the conning tower of the submarine.  Crawling over the bottom like a strange monster, the claws will also help to avoid collisions with walls when the depths of the water veils the power of the searchlight.

There is, in addition, a small electric crane on the nose of the submarine so that heavy objects can be borne to the surface.  Meeker does not expect to gain much in the way of heavy relics of the lost city, for certain parts of the sea bottom are so covered with ooze that he believes it only possible to clear it away through suction hose long enough to make quick observation possible.  The subaqueous lights which will help this work are powerful Tungsten lamps enclosed in a steel shell with a heavy prismatic lens at the bottom.  These lamps are connected to the power plant on the steamer by armored cables and will develop 5,000 candle power each.

The generating station on the parent ship of the expedition, as the rusty tramp is known, is as extensive as those on a first class liner or a dreadnought.  Little of the power will go for the benefit of the steamer though.  Its purpose is to furnish the light for the swinging Tungstens and to charge the great storage batteries of the submarines.  These batteries run the many motors on which depends the success of the work.  If it were not for electricity, the searchers would be handicapped.  As it is they call to their aid all the strong magic of modern days.

INDEX

“Accident that Gave Us Wood-Pulp Paper, The,” 356

Adventure as a source of interest, 41.

Agricultural journals, 11, 20, 23;
  articles in, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 78;
  examples of articles in, 81, 248, 341;
  excerpts from, 127,128, 156