The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-08-26
UNDER THE SEA.
What Diver Sees Among the Broken
Wrecks of the Ocean.

What a Diver Sees Among the Broken
Wrecks of the Ocean.
From, the Neto York Grapn,c
Mr. Eugene Sullivan, the diver, sat on
coil of rope smoking his pipe. Mr.. Sulli-
vans helmet and diving suit were laid out
on the pier to dry. Mr.. Sullivan's boat was
moored at the wharf, and Mr.. Sullivan
himself was enjoying the placid luxury of
the weed after a hearty dinner He had
been exploring the regions under the bridge
in search of teredo worms and limnoria,
and any other pile-eating animal that might
be skuking around in the vicinity of the
recent disaster. The tide was up, and Mr.
Sullivan could work no more till it went
down again.
Mr.. Sullivan talked He had never seen
a mermaid. He was quite positive on this
point. Moreover, he doesn't believe any
diver ever saw a mermaid or anything that
could be construed into mermaid. He has
never seen one of those terrific monsters
with a hundred arms that Jules Verne tells
about in Twenty Thousand Leagues
American theater-g going public have
sean in "Fantasma." In fact he had
never beheld any blood-curdling
reptiles nor gigantic sea monsters. He
hadn't oven seen a shark.
But Mr.. Sullivan had seen a sword fish,
which divers dread more than sharks. Ev-
cry one knows that they have a sharp
sword projecting from their heads. Well,
this fish goes charging through the water
with his sword pointed dead ahead, and he
goes it blind, turning from his course for
nothing short of a ledge or the steel plates
of an English ship When he strikes ledge
he shifts his course enough to glide up over
it, but when he strikes anything penetrahle,
like the bottom of an American merchant
man, he goes right through it.
Mr.. Sullivan thanks his lucky stars that
he never encountered but one of these fish,
and that he was only young fish, with
cartilaginous sword. He saw him coming
and prepared to ward him off with his ak,
but the fish relieved him of all uneasiness
by veering his course before he came with
in swords length.
As 10 the other fish the diver sees they are
legion. They swarm all around him. Hid
eous soul pins peep into his eye-windows and
grin horribly, and snake-like cells glide over
his feet and squirm round his legs, and
crabs and Holsters aw at his clothing and
make themselves familiar in a cardial man
ner that would make anyone, except "A
stoical diver, go out of the water. Bu5 it's
the simple, everyday perch, the little fish
the boys catch at the wharves, that bother
the divers most. They seem to think his
fingers are bait, prepared by an over
TulllS ITONluenCe lOT OiieH olJSClul dple-
tite, and accordingly they nibble and glaw
the bare flesh with the same persistency
that they employ in devouring angle worms
sent down on fish hooks. You see it's not
fashionable among divers to wear gloves
when diving in warm water. Gloves " ould
greatly decrease the delicacy of touch with
wdich the diver examines the Shiny pile in
seerch OF worms.
Yes, he goes by the sense Of touch en-
tirely. He can see nothing when he is
under thirty feet Of water In fact he can
see tuthing after he has gone down half
that distance into the muddy dep5bs of the
Charles river. In the oDon ocean, or the
limpid, lake or the sparkling river, he can
see with tolerable clsarness some distance
ahead, say twenty feet, but down under
the pile bridge of the Fitchburg railroad it
is as dark as the condensed quintescence Of
an Egyptian midnight.
A year or so ago Mr.. Sullivan was cling
ing to the mast of schooner sunk off in
the ocean somewhere, when the boat that
was pumping air TO him dragged her anchor
and came pounding along on the waves
right over tue suuken ship, and thupped
twice on tho mast to which he was cling
ing.
"If / had been sitting on the top of the
mast where was a second before, | should
have been psralyzed," observed the diver,
as he stir ed up the ashes in his pipe with
his jack-knife. and knocked them out against
the side of the bridge house. "The first
tling | knew they we're dragging me
through the water, and yanking me up over
tho sido, and hauling me all over the dock
trying % get my helmet off. They tholgnt
/ was I'd. You SEQ the boss had lost a
man just "a day or two before, and W as