Page:Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Volume 1 (2nd edition).djvu/123

Rh the arm, and two in the hand. The usual time stopping under water is from fifty seconds to two and a half minutes. Much has been said of the danger of these fisheries, both from the shark, and another enemy called the Mantá, which crushes its victim. 'But the shark is ever a coward; and so little of a match for an expert diver with a knife, that an accident is hardly known.'

Many individuals in Panamà have made it their for years to collect, in this way, pearls for the formation of laces: some of which, after continued changing and labour, are certainly of the most perfect symmetry. But their price is reckoned according to the marketable value of such articles, but according to the trouble which may have been bestowed in collecting and assorting them; and thus they are often dearer on the spot than in London. Some time ago a diving-bell was sent out by an English company for pearl fishing, but it did not answer their expectation, and several causes may be assigned for its failure. The first and primary was the enormous expense at which the concern was fitted out and supported; after which it was found, that the oysters did not lie in banks, as is generally the case, but were dispersed under rocks and in uneven ground: and that a peculiar ground-swell and motion under the water, with a very strong current, made it almost impossible to place the bell in safety, and to advantage. 



all the waters of the deep which have been penetrated by the enterprise of British sailors, there are none so little known to us, by actual observation, as the Black Sea. Although it appears, by a memorial presented to the Turkish government on the 1st of September, 1799, by Mr. John Spencer Smith, that both in the times of Queen Elizabeth and of Charles II. , British merchantmen were permitted to navigate the Euxine throughout its whole extent, for the purposes of commerce; yet the most copious naval histories of our country do not afford a single instance of a ship of war, antecedent to the short excursion made by his Majesty's ship Blonde, in November, 1829, having been permitted to navigate the Euxine; and even the multifarious record of the valuable old Purchas affords us only two instances (which were pointed out to me by my friend Mr. Barrow) of Englishmen having traversed any